


Routine Stops

by ofWildflowersandPoisonedEarth



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Death, Dirty Talk, Drug Use, Drug-Induced Sex, F/M, Fluff, Girls with Guns, Gore, Guns, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of controversy surrounding police and current events, Murder, Nihilism, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Smut, Spanking, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Suicidal Thoughts, Traffic Accidents, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:18:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 52,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9607310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofWildflowersandPoisonedEarth/pseuds/ofWildflowersandPoisonedEarth
Summary: These are the stories of a series of routine stops and calls that Deputy Shane Walsh attends alone, and all the ways in which nothing is ever routine.  All chapters will be distinct and different, and from different points of view.Ch. 1: Erotic Driving - Reader X Shane - A bad breakup, flash floods statewide, and now you're getting a speeding ticket...Ch. 2: Head - Shane X OC - 1st person, from Shane's POV.  After processing a grisly traffic crash, Shane is left crashing and burning, trying to process the ghastly emotional aftermath, but it won't be alone...Ch. 3:He Said/She Said - OC 1st person/Shane 1st person- Shane investigates a crime at a strip joint.  Sometimes the truth of a story is all in the eyes of the beholder; depends who's doing the talking.  Split perspective.





	1. Erotic Driving

A hard rain fell in sheets, driven across the disappearing horizon by a gusty wind. The sun was set, but it wasn't all dark yet. Dim and grey, there was no harder time of day to see, as the thick undergrowth and tall Georgia pines blurred into the deepening sky.

Shane Walsh had been snuck up on by the twilight and suddenly whipped his sunglasses off, watching the sad little red Sunfire ahead of his cruiser, painfully oblivious that a cop was behind her. He knew it was a chick, the way she was weaving in her lane, maintaining no particular speed. Besides, what kind of dude drove a red Sunfire with a peeling Roxy sticker in the back window and a collection of leis and dolphin air fresheners dangling from the rear view? Shane knew he was right, as he flipped his lights on and chirped the siren at her twice.

You were oblivious. And it sure was painful. You'd just fled a scene that you wished now you could go back and never have been cast in to begin with. What a waste of two and a half good years of your life that you could never get back. You weren't sad it was over, but hot tears had flooded your eyes and spilled over your cheeks as you drove away when the skies had opened, and it felt like the whole world was crying for you; narcissistic, maybe, but who wasn't at your age. You were relieved and happy to have finally ended it, broken out in chills and goosebumps at the promise of a life without being held back by him. But now you grieved at the sad loss of your dearly departed time, stolen during the prime of your life. You really should have known better than to date a Chad.

Someday, though, you'd laugh, and you knew it.

"For how much guys all seem to like tits, they sure don't have a clue how to handle them.", you'd said. The phrase that finally got you out. He'd been so mad, defensive, instantly. It was like he knew this storm had been brewing as much as you'd been praying for the rain, trapped in his dustbowl.

He wanted to know what you meant. "Well...", you'd said, knowing this would be the beginning of the end, "Y'all grab at them like an overgrown toddler who about needs to be weaned, or like you're honking a bicycle horn, or clumsily paw at them like a limp fish trying to milk a cow in the dark. It's gross. Doesn't exactly inspire a woman, you know?", you'd answered with a laugh.

A flurry of yelling had ensued. He was actually surprised by how checked out you were. Men were so clueless. You'd been sleepwalking through this for months now. You'd even surprised yourself with how corrosive and accute your anger was. The worst part about all of this, and probably a huge catalyst, was that you had to have this firefight with an audience. Of course, thirty something year old Chad still lived with his parents, upstairs in the rec room with the dormer windows, just ruining their retirement. It was such an advantageous situation for an irresponsible popped collar seasonal worker, that he'd just kept on keeping on, and filling low limit credit cards with Doritos and X Box games. So while you railed at him about these facts, that had not only crippled his life, but yours too, his mom and dad and stood at the foot of the stairs listening, ears perked to your tirade about his very, very short, shortcomings in the bedroom, like Mr. and Mrs. Meercat.

But you were too leaded with the years of pent up frustration to throttle yourself, even with eavesdroppers. And why had you insisted on throwing the first haymaker about the bedroom? Probably because he wasn't a man and never was going to be, and you hated him there more than anywhere else. And in the moment, pacing that ugly purple room, plastered with all his stupid posters for idiotic punk bands that had probably disbanded before your fifth birthday, and even more stupid posters signed by pro skateboarders, like he was a fucking fourteen year old girl with a loser's crush, you just couldn't hold back the cutting criticisms any longer.

He was awful in bed. He kissed like a camel. He'd never made you come once. He inflicted his boring ass self on you, while you attempted to leave your crawling skin behind. You'd turn your head away, hoping to avoid his creepy Patty and Selma Bouvier kisses, willing your eyes out of focus. You'd think about what you were going to make for supper on Sunday when your folks came, because of course, as a girl ten years his junior, you were more a man than Chad would ever be. You had your own apartment, a full time job, your own Playstation and even a smoker on your deck. Maybe ribs in the smoker. That would be good. You could start the rootbeer and bourbon baked beans in the slow cooker the night before, make a baked mac and cheese, do up some turnip greens, and make a jam cake for dessert. Before you got to the end of the menu, he'd be finished. Thank goodness.

So when you'd finally blown up and told him this colossal hemorrhage of your time and energy was over, yeah, you'd unloaded about that too. You weren't even sure what wanting a man felt like for sure. The only sensation you'd had for as long as you remembered was an unsatisfied orb of rage deep inside. It was all you could feel anymore, and he could never make it go away because he was nothing but a useless boy. You weren't a prude, as much as your momma wished you were, and so it surprised you that as you drove out of Chad's parent's gated community on the outskirts of town, that you were crying because you'd let him have sex with you. You wished you could have all those bad times back, and it made you so mad. You'd let him get the best of you. The powerlessness just added to your frustration and anger, but all you could do was cry, and step hard on the gas.

"Oh bloody hell.", you mutter now, as you hear the chirps of a cop's siren behind you, and notice the red and blues flashing in your mirror and off your cheeks into your bleary eyes. "This is just what I need."

This is your first time ever being pulled over, and you realize that you aren't quite sure how. Your first good luck of the day; there's an approach just ahead, where once you've got your ticket, you can sit and cry in peace for a second on the red Georgia clay.

As you signal and turn in, you breathe deep, wiping away the tears in your eyes. You look a lot more fine than you feel. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara. It was supposed to be date night; you know, the night where you took the dead weight out and bought him supper instead of you or his mother making it for him? Yeah. So of course, you came correct because that's just your style.

Before there's a chance to make any adjustments to yourself, or to even get your license and registration ready, there's a rap on the windshield. Rolling your window down, the moist chill of the night washing over your bare arms and legs, you find yourself face to face with the, ummm, biggest weapon you've ever seen concealed and carried. You don't mean to notice it at all, and your cheeks flush with embarrassment. It's just that it's right in your sight line. You can't imagine what it must look like drawn. Eyes diverted to his handsome face, you try to conceal your sudden interest in this guy who's about to give you a ticket you can't afford.

"Shane Walsh, Deputy, King's County Sheriff's.", he says, chomping violently on what smells like a piece of Black Jack gum, and you think there's a little hint of something like amusement on his face. "I, uh, wouldn't normally ask this, but it's really comin' down out here. You grab y'er licence and registration an' come back to the car with me?", he asks politely, if not a bit curt, with a half smile, before turning and running back to his cruiser.

Eyeing him in your rear view, as you feel in your glove box for the documentation he wants, you realize that your face isn't really flushed with embarrassment. It's something else. Something about Deputy Walsh makes you think maybe there's one guy who might have a clue what to do with a pair of boobs. Before you let yourself go wondering what you'd have to do to qualify yourself for a frisk and pat down, you find yourself running through the pouring rain, most concerned that you wore a white eyelet sundress without a bra, and with red Hello Kitty panties underneath, and none of that is likely to remain much of a secret in this deluge.

Squinting your eyes, rain in your lashes, you barely notice the deputy motion you to the back seat. Letting yourself in and sitting down, wiping the wet hair that is sticking to your face aside, you find him smiling at you, and cranking the heat in the car up.

"Sorry about that, sweetheart.", he says. "Just I'm startin' shift right now, an' if I stand out there an' get soaked, I spend all twelve hours that way."

"That's okay.", you answer, biting your lower lip. "I guess I have it comin'. It was me speeding, right?"

"That's not the only reason I pulled you over. You were speeding, no question, but do you know why else I mighta pulled you over this evening?", Shane asks you, still cranked around in his seat. Routine words for a routine stop. You'd hoped he'd be a little more original, or at least you tell yourself that, trying not to think about his smoldering eyes, or the way his biceps bulge against the short sleeves of his uniform. You shouldn't have thought the word bulge at all... that thought makes you smirk, and blush.

"I don't know.", you answer apologetically, with a shake of your head, breaking the gaze into his eyes and looking away. "Probably driving erratic."

"Bit of an understatement. Y'were all over the place. Now, y'don't smell like you been drinkin', but I gotta get you to blow, alright? Just a precaution."

It's Deputy Shane Walsh who sounds a little sheepish now. A heedless impulse overcomes you, when you realize that you are young, pretty, single again finally, and this is the first opportunity you've ever had to flirt your way out of a ticket. Besides, even right now, as he waits for your reaction, Deputy Walsh can't seem to keep his eyes off you, and as your gaze follows the trajectory of his, you see it is lit right on your wet sundress, see through and clinging to your breasts, on your nipples hard with the cold. He licks his lips but doesn't look away uncomfortably. He undresses you with his eyes as long as he feels like before meeting your gaze, and arousal floods over you at his boldness.

"You want me to blow?", you ask him back, hoping it sounds every bit as suggestive as you mean it. You actually mean it, is the crazy thing, and worrying that maybe you've gone too far without feeling him out a little better first, you attempt to dial it back. "I mean, I think a breathalyzer test is a little presumptuous when I'm cooperating, and you have no reason to suspect impairment.", you add in your best lawyer voice. But it comes out angry, and he senses it.

To your genuine surprise, his response back is gentle and clairvoyantly insightful.

"Y'er an angry little thing, ain't you, girl? Huh? You break up tonight or something? I can see you've been cryin', an' don't try to say no. An' you ain't sad, that's plain as day. So it's mad then. Now, see, I suspect that has everything to do with you drivin' like a hysteric dingbat, and that it's nothin' to do with whiskey." His voice isn't the gravely drawl from before, but a smooth Southern droning, willing you towards his will.

"Maybe.", you answer him back softly. "I know you are just doing your job. I'd be happy to blow you." Your eyes grow wide with humiliation, and you can actually feel your chest blooming in pink and white fireworks, heat prickling you from the inside. "I mean, to blow for you.", you stammer, as Shane smiles a straight white smile at you, a barely audible laugh escaping his lips, before he purses them, and shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck, and adjusting and smoothing down tight the simply stated navy 'Police' cap he wears.

You watch him get out of the driver's seat and join you in the cage in the back. Wondering if he was flattered by your Freudian slip, you try not to look at the concealed weapon, dressed to the left, that might be a bigger caliber now than when he first stopped you. When he slides across the back seat beside you, removing his hat and shaking the rain from it, you finally get a sense of how much bigger he is than you are. You're not a tall girl by any stretch, but Chad was a short man, no taller than you. Shane, however, is head and shoulders over you, even sitting down, and there isn't a part on him that's not muscular. Like an old school bare knuckle heavyweight, something about him - maybe his broken nose that he never ran to a doctor to have set all the times he's obviously broke it, maybe the way he wears his pants up higher than any other man you've seen anywhere but in a black and white picture, maybe the way he talks to you like he knows what it means for him to be a man and you to be a girl - something about him reminds you of a man from before even your parents were born. He's no metrosexual, no 21st century man. He's not enlightened, and it is the sexiest thing you've ever been subjected to. Shane Walsh is like no man you've ever met before.

As he moves the beeping box toward your mouth, and gently pushes the tube past your lips, you wonder if he isn't the last real man left alive.

"Okay. Blow until I tell you to stop, an' don't stop beforehand, or we are going to have to do this again, alright?", he says, less authoritative than anxious.

Your eyes tilt down as you blow through the tube in your mouth, unable to keep doing it while looking in his deep set brown eyes. There's no mistaking it now. As your eyes land between his athletic thighs, you see that he is fully erect, and not ashamed one bit. It's the most head-swimmingly intoxicating thing you've ever experienced, and you can feel that hot ache of angry dissatisfaction deep below your belly button firing frustrated pangs of electricity right to your now swollen little clit.

"That'll do it.", you hear him say. Thankful that you can stop exhaling as your head spins, you gasp a quick breath in quietly as Shane withdraws the machine from your lips. He's not touching you, but he's sitting so close that you can feel the heat radiating from his body.

"Hey? You dizzy?", he asks you, reaching a hand up to your cheek, tilting your face toward him as he leans forward to look at you, his eyes toggling back and forth, searching yours intently. "I know it's a big breath when y'er nervous. An' y'passed, just like you said you would."

It's loud in your head, and loud in the car. The tinny pings of the raindrops on the roof of the cruiser have become a thunderous racket amid the real thunder claps. You consider the reality of this man's day to day life, and how nice he's being to you, given the circumstances. The tiny tragedy repeated daily in his life of being treated as an antagonist by most of the people he encounters, the very people he's sworn to protect and serve, by rights could have rendered him heartless and mistrustful, but he hasn't let it. Sure, if you were a bad guy, you have no doubt he'd put you down; this is not a man above a choke hold when no one is looking. You don't blame him though. In fact, it's hot. You even have some nominations for recipient of a choke hold. Hell, you're pretty sure you might even enjoy some police brutality at his hands.

Digging your heels in against this moment being over, and being sent out into the lashing rain with nothing but a speeding ticket, you notice Deputy Shane Walsh isn't making any movement away from you either, but is looking out the windshield, his low forehead furrowed up, and his jaw dropped in thought.

"Um, Deputy?", you say a little tentatively, delaying the inevitable, "How'd you know it'd be whiskey?"

Is this flirting out of a ticket? You aren't sure. Or was him trying to guess your drink him flirting you into a ticket?

His rugged face relaxes, and he looks back at you with a smile. "Y'er boots." He answers plainly, smugness tugging one side of his lip upwards. "C'mon. That banana color? Ain't seen those in years. The way the toes are all turned up? An' look at the way they're worn. Lotsa chicks around here'll bust out the shit kicker boots, but it's all rhinestone cowgirl shit. Those slouch around y'er ankles. Takes years to wear a pair of boots down like that. So I'm bettin' they're hand me downs older than you are, probably y'er momma's, from when she was nearly the looker you are now. A girl wearin' second hand boots like that? Like she means it? Wasn't a tough guess; wouldn't hafta be a rough detective to figure that out. So, what is it? Double snort a' Jim Beam?"

One eyebrow raised against your own will, you fight back an unquenchable smile. "No. Just three fingers, and I mean yours not mine, of straight Jameson's, chased with an ice cold Cheerwine."

Deputy Walsh is still smiling, but he shakes his head at you like you just committed blasphemy; you know, like saying something as horrifying as that Remington makes a real nice shotgun or something, when everyone knows they suck balls. 

"Do what now?", he asks you incredulously. "Well, darlin', that's an order that's just so tangled up and wrong that I don't even know where to start with you. That says you don't even know who you are."

"Oh, please.", you hear yourself retort. Something about the fight earlier still has your adrenaline up, and all at once, you've realized you'll be damned if you ever don't just speak your mind at the earliest possible interlude again. "I think you just think I don't know where I am." Exhaling and rolling your eyes, you add while smoothing the short full skirt of your still soaked dress, "I'm a Baptist, just like I'm sure you are, and I was born right in this county, never been above the Mason Dixon. I ain't some New York Catholic, Jameson's is just smooth, that's all. And I cleanse my sin every time with a Cheerwine. I know exactly who I am, Deputy."

Before you can worry if you've offended him and maybe bought yourself a reckless driving charge on top, Deputy Walsh laughs a full, throaty laugh, and replies back lazily, "Y'know what? I like you. Y'can just call me Shane. And I ain't gonna ticket you for speeding either, alright? Y'were, and I could, but I imagine it'd make sittin' back here until the rain let's up enough to move on out a touch on the awkward side."

You feel your heart skip a beat. A crazy assertion, but you never want to leave the backseat of this car.

"What do you mean?", you ask.

"You didn't hear? Flash flood warnings for the entirety of the county. Travel not advised. Biggest reason I pulled y'over. I guess the way you were drivin', it shouldn't surprise me that y'didn't notice there's been no other cars on the road but us since I pulled up behind you."

You hadn't noticed. You hadn't noticed a thing since you'd noticed Shane, and yet, for some reason now, you couldn't look at him. The car was baking hot inside from the cranked heater he'd turned on to help dry your dress. It was working. While it was still wet, all around the edges, it was beginning to lose its transparency. Time was running out.

Looking up at Shane, you find him looking at you with that unbreaking gaze. Turning a little on the bench seat to tilt towards him, your knee comes to rest against his leg, and his lips part.

"Shane?", you ask him, "What do you wanna do while we wait?"

He wastes absolutely no time, his big, long fingered hands roughly grab your hips and pull you onto him. "You actually think you gotta ask me that?", he asks you just before his mouth closes over your lips; even clean shaven, his face feels rough as it crushes against yours. One of his hands cradles the back of your head, his fingers tangled up in your hair, pulling it just a little. This is a good kiss, you consider in your spinning mind. It's authoritative, but gentle, and he's not asking you, he's telling. You realize that's the essence of seduction: When a man makes your body want him so bad that you can no longer bring yourself to tell him no. A seduction is when a man is so competent that he can erase all your objections and leave you begging him to give you more of what feels good.

Nothing has ever felt anything like this to you before. You want him so bad, that everything is a blur, and nothing seems off limits. The things you are thinking about him are so naughty that you'd be ashamed of yourself, that is, if you weren't too turned on to think nothing but the dirtiest things imaginable. You feel out of control, and driven towards nothing but trying to use him and his incredible body to finally come. Rapidly, you are coming to the realization that the orb of aching anger between your hipbones needs to be slaked. It's agonizing, and you can't keep living like that. Shane's still kissing you, trying not to rush you, but you don't want to wait and you don't need to be warmed up. You need to take that huge brutal cock of Shane's and feel it from the inside.

As you are thinking this, Shane reaches his hand down and adjusts himself, pulling his unwieldy erection up to lay against his body, instead of being uncomfortably confined, stretched halfway down his left pant leg. He leans back against the seat, just looking intensely at you, as he pulls you by the hips up onto it and starts to thrust his hardness against you, while he pushes you down, grinding your hips back and forth.

"Oh, Shane...", you moan, breathlessly. Even this, just sitting in his lap feeling him through your panties feels so good you could almost come. He's doing everything right, the angle he's pushing you down at, and the way he's moving; all the pressure drives against the tingling little pink bead of throbbing nerves, hidden still in your panties, just south of Hello Kitty's face. You can't imagine how good this would be naked.

You can't believe what you say next. "Shane, I need it now.", you plead, your hands trailing down his chiseled body and pawing clumsily at his belt, "Fuck me, Shane."

Shane's been sucking hot kisses off your slender neck and sharp collarbone, and pulls his head back slowly, with an amused look on his face. "So this's why y'er so angry, huh? Ex couldn't get you off, an' you been sleepwalkin' through life with tight blue walls all this time?", he asks, dropping the straps of your dress from your shoulders, and looking at your body without blinking, as your dress falls and pools around his uniformed lap. "Fuck, baby", he says exhaling hard, and leaning his head back, and adds, "Now, see, if that ain't fucking perfection...", as you feel his cock lurch against you. "I guess I gotta fuck you then, since you obviously ain't safe to be out driving in this state of mind."

Even so excited that your eyes can barely focus and your hands won't stop shaking, you've finally got the button of Shane's pants undone, and as you unzip him, you look down, like you're opening your biggest present on Christmas morning. Pushing the ruins of your dropped dress aside, you come face to face with the instrument of torture that you so desperately want Shane to flog you with. It's absolutely perfect, and everything about it just screams how good it could make you feel. Like seriously, you can picture it on a page, with little lines pointing to all its features and selling points. It's the one every single vibrating pink rubber sex toy should be modeled after, and the man it belongs to knows it. He's smiling like the Cheshire Cat just at the sight of the expression on your face, your lips parted and your eyes disappeared into nothing but aroused anime pupils.

"I want you naked", Shane growls, pulling your dress back over your head and off completely, as you whine to be given your hands back so you can stroke his cock with them. You just got your present, and resent it being taken away even for a moment. It's so long and thick and straight. And so hard that it almost looks bruised. And the tip. Oh, fuck. The tip... the ridge that runs around his huge blunted tip has to be a quarter inch deep before it runs into his substantial shaft. A shudder quivers through the core of your body just thinking what that will feel like being repeatedly pounded in and out over that sensitive spot on your front wall. You never got dicks before, not really. They were ugly, just necessary, and that was all. A little horrified at you lustful baseness, you have to admit, you are turned on by this cock. If you dare say it, this one's downright pretty.

"Well, hello, kitty.", Shane says, a grin on his face, as he pulls your panties off, you straightening your leg, and then pulling a foot up through one leg to lose them. It's the first time you've felt at all inhibited, but now that you are totally naked in front of Shane, you're feeling it; laid bare.

Seeing the flicker of hesitation, Shane asks softly, "You together a long time, you an' y'er ex?"

"Yeah, he was my first real boyfriend, you know, after college.", you answer, biting your lip. Shane's hands still protectively hold your waist. He knows you need to feel the reassurance of his body under you. It's weird, but it is exactly what you need.

"He y'er first?"

How did he do that? Too insightful where sex was concerned, almost. Should be creepy, but it just made you want to fuck him more.

"Yeah. My only, I guess.", you answer.

Shane's working man's hands are slowly working their way up your toned body, until they come to rest against your chest wall, firmly cupping your breasts from underneath, his thumbs gently tweaking and rubbing circles, almost absentmindedly, on your perked up little nipples. It feels good; every motion can be felt in your clit like he's doing a magic trick. You can't help but moan, and grind your hips into the pleasure as he does it.

"An' how long was it?"

"Two and a half years." You lean down and kiss Shane, hoping to allay any awkwardness these answers may be making the hot cop holding you feel. But he's more man than that. He still kisses you back hard, pausing from his interrogation, to thrust his strong tongue into your mouth. Being this aroused has your oral fixation dredged up from your id. You suck his tongue hard, wishing it was his cock.

Eventually breaking from the kiss, Shane clicks his tongue at you and says, "Poor little kitty. So, in all that time, you never came?" As he asks you this, he deftly forces his long middle finger inside you. You're wet as this night is, and slicked to his touch, but tight even for one finger.

"I've never come with a man.", you respond, in halting breathless words, slumped over his shoulder, trying to breathe through the searing waves of pleasure that the discomfort of his digit inside you is causing. You don't know how on earth you will handle his cock, but you don't care. You want it to hurt. He makes you that depraved.

Shane's beginning to feel depraved himself. That little comment made his cock want a whole lot more, a lot faster, and makes him ache for a little more talk too.

"So you've come alone then?", Shane asks you, his voice tight and husky now with his lust.

Now, normally, you'd lie, but you're too turned on, and just thinking about this has the tip of his finger rubbing on that spot inside that you like touched, that makes you feel like a nympho for at least a week if anything so much as brushes against it. It feels so good and you don't want him to stop or slow down, and besides, your mind is too blanked to think of a lie. And Shane's so fucking hot. You just want to give him anything he wants and see if you can make him get even harder and bigger.

"Yeah. Of course. But it isn't helping anymore.", you breathe against his ear. His hair smells nice. Just plain clean, no frills. "Oh, damn it, Shane... that feels so fucking good."

"I can't believe you didn't lie about that. Chicks never admit to that.", Shane groans into the hollow of your neck. "It doesn't help? How you doin' it?"

You can tell that this is a thing he's really into. All of a sudden, Deputy Walsh is out of breath, and fingerbanging you hard, and without any precision. It doesn't matter; it still feels incredible, and you're too far gone to care what he does to you anymore.

"How do I do it?", you purr. "Um, well, lots of different ways, but none feel as good as what you are doing."

That brings him back into focus, and he resumes swishing forceful, tight circles with his fingertip inside your swollen, anxious core, against your little nympho button, and adds his thumb to your clit, rubbing it firmly. "Be specific, sweetie, or I'm gonna stop.", he demands, his voice low and tight.

Not gonna lie, you feel a little shy talking about this, but you can't let him stop. The warm, throbbing tension that he's building inside you is agonizing and you need him. "Um, I usually do it at bedtime because I can't fall asleep otherwise.", you confess quietly.

A guttural moan escapes Shane's lips, the warm rush of breath curling down your neck makes your nipples tingle and a chill go down your back. Feeling exposed already, you needed that reassurance. But you still need more, and reach one hand down to stroke his big cock. It's hard as steel all the way to the tip, so hard it feels a little gnarled, but his skin is so damned silky and just makes your little hand want to stoke it in long, twisting tugs.

"I pull my panties down, and just leave them on one leg. I never start until I'm already really wet and horny and need to do it.", you whisper.

He's breathing harder now, and the kisses he is sucking from your throat have turned rough and cloying. You know your neck is going to bear the evidence of this encounter tomorrow.

"I spread my legs apart a little. I read once you should keep your knees up, but I like it better with my legs down and stiff like a Barbie doll.", you go on, encouraged by the way he's responding.

"Ah, damn it, little girl.', Shane breathes out slow, under his breath, thrusting his hot erection into your hand as you continue to stroke him. He's as excited as you are, and now he needs to come just as badly too. "Then what, huh?"

"Mmmm, well, I put all the fingertips of one hand against, you know...", you tease.

"Nah. I don't.", he says bluntly, teasing back. "I already let y'off the hook about the speeding. You have to say it."

"Okay." You blush hard. "I put my fingers against my pussy.", you whisper as quietly as you can in his ear. "I don't put any in though. I just get them all wet and slippery, and start rubbing my clit. I don't know quite how I do that... by then I need it so bad it just happens however it happens. I think I mostly rub it up and down, really, really fast and not too hard."

Before you get a chance to feel embarrassed or worry you shouldn't have told him that, you notice that he's slick himself now, his cock oozing warm nectar into your hand. Shane moans and arches his back, pulling his mouth away from your clavicle to look at you; sexy little thing, face flushed with excitement, and your hair still half wet, lips parted and swollen like his dick really oughta be in your mouth, eyes heavy with arousal. You watch his eyes fall down over you slowly, until he's looking at his hand that's working you, finger inside you thumping so hard over and over right on that spot that makes you horny, that he can see what he's doing through your flat lower tummy, like a heartbeat, while you sit in his lap furiously stroking his huge cock.

"So you never put your own finger inside like this?", he asks you.

Biting your lip and avoiding his stare, you just shake your head no.

Shane blinks slowly, still entranced, watching the hard flicks of his finger through your tight, flat tummy, licking his lips. He looks smug. He also looks like a man who can't take this much longer.

"Then I know what you need, darlin'. You wanna get on this?", he asks in a rough drawl against the soft skin just beneath your ear as he withdraws his finger from you slowly, leaving you moaning and frantically desperate to have him back inside you. Before you even know what's hit you, he's lifted your body like a doll and flopped you on your back across the seat.

"Oh, Shane, yeah...", is all you can think to breathe out as you feel the crushing weight of his strong body coming down on yours. He's wasting no time. Being lust drunk, your eyes just want to close, but you have to see this, at least a little, so you struggle to raise your head and look down. He's still in uniform, but that huge, perfect battering ram between his legs is held in his big long fingered hand, and he's already starting to press it against the hot throb between your legs. You can feel how dripping wet you are, your dew slicking the insides of your legs as Shane has to forcefully thrust his massive tip past the tight resistance of your body. For a moment, the exquisite pain of being stretched so far beyond your limits, steals your ability to even suck in a ragged breath.

Shane sees the wide eyed look of shock on your face and asks, "You okay? I can be gentle."

"Don't you dare.", you finally find your lungs responsive again, and answer with a wicked little smile.

With that, he withdraws from you, and enters you again, a little harder this time. Shane knows what he's doing; even as wet as you are, he's too big to go in all at once. You realize he's getting his huge member wet a little at a time, thrusting in a little further each time. Every thrust in extrudes a lifeless gasp from the relief and the pain you are feeling simultaneously, and every time he pulls out, you whine and beg softly to have it back.

Your body slowly adapts to Shane's and molds tightly around him, holding him tight as he pounds into you in perfect time, every thrust smooth with a sharp push at the end before he pulls back a little slower, dragging the ridge around his big brutal tip over that spot he was hammering with his finger earlier, and nailing it again on the way in. Shane's strong body covers yours; the weight on you excites you, making you feel safe and a little scared all at once. You meet every one of his thrusts into you, popping your hips up to meet him, wanting to grind your naughty little bead into the thick dark hair on his pubic bone as he enters you. You grip helplessly at the vinyl bench seat, but every hard thrust pushes your body back until your head is uncomfortably crammed into the armrest on the door. The unrelenting rhythm feels too unbearably good for you to stop for anything. You hardly notice your head knocking off the car door, and it wouldn't be worth stopping over anyway. He's not wearing a condom. You don't care. The slick, silky skin on his knotty thick cock feels too good to cover up. You want to say this to him, and more; how you like how it hurts, how you want him to fuck you so hard he stuffs his balls up into you, how you want to fucking ride the e-brake in the center console of the car while you suck him off so deep in your throat that you can't even gag, just loll your watery eyes and swallow him, tell him there isn't a bad thing you wouldn't do for him as long as he'd give you his dick... but you don't, because you can't speak. He's too good, and all you can do is moan and try not to pass out or come before you are ready.

"Ah, sweetheart, you really did need this, didn't you?", he growls against your cheek, his teeth on your flesh. Before you can answer him, he notices the unnatural angle of your neck, as your head slams on the door behind you, and without missing a beat, drags you back a few inches by the hips, inching you even further down his shaft.

"Uh huh, yeah, Shane.", you just exhale the words barely audibly.

"Me too, girl.", he says just before closing his warm sweet lips over your lower lip and biting it. "I like mad little girls. Not enough of you smart enough to ever get mad enough. You always like it the hardest."

"Do it harder, then. Never been a girl more mad than I am." You issue him the challenge with an icy, unflinching stare.

Shane rolls his hips against yours and bottoms out in you, circling his cock around the walls of your too-tight body. It hurts, but the shards it sends shooting painfully up to your belly button and out towards your hipbones are nothing compared to the hot, numb throb that quivers through you every time, pulling you in tighter and tighter around him. He doesn't do it every time. He's too big, and that's too punishing. He's not a sadist; he likes making you feel good, not hurting a girl. But he does know just what you need and that prickly, pulsing orb of hate and frustration that had settled into the hollow of your pelvic basin isn't going to be shattered with a slow gentle fuck. Shane knows you need it hard.

"Damn that heater", he complains under his breath, wiping away the salty sweat that's running into his eyes. You've been working him hard, and his uniform is beginning to cling to his body, his hair soaked. You reach behind yourself with numb wooden hands and roll the window down and let the driving rain blow in with the the cool air.

Shane moans and speeds up, as you fuck him back even harder, your slim legs burning from thrusting your body up to meet his so many times. The tension inside you is becoming unbearable, and you can't speak or open your eyes anymore. Shane's getting close, and you can tell. His cock feels hot and painfully hard, as it twitches inside you every time you squeeze it. The way he's fucking that big thing into you, neither of you can hold off much longer.

"Baby girl, you getting close?" There's an attempt to conceal the urgency in his voice, but you hear it anyway.

Struggling to answer back, you slur out, "Yeah. You got a couple minutes left in you?"

"I dunno. You're fucking tight, an' I like it hard like this. I'm on th'edge, darlin. Don't fuck me back, okay, baby? Let me finish you first."

You trust Shane, laying there on the backseat of his police car, wet with your sweat, and his, and the cool rain. You just look in his deep brown eyes helplessly and nod yes.

"Okay, baby.", he instructs you softly, "Do that thing like when you're alone. Lock your knees up like a Barbie doll, okay? You listenin'? An' don't breathe.", he adds in your ear as he slips his long fingers over your mouth and nose.

You feel the weight of Shane's whole body come down on yours as you do as he asked. He's going to come, what he's doing, and you know it. But so are you. Your head and feet are arching, and your whole body is turning numb, while you become nothing but the agonizing tension that is building, seemingly endlessly inside you, as your head swims and all you can hear is the rush of your own pulse in your ears. It feels so good that you almost need to pull back from it, but you're too far gone. Shane is hammering you with thrusts faster than you knew were possible, and with your legs tight and your oxygen running out, you feel your body explode. It's so tight, pulling in and in and up and up, until suddenly, hard contractions wring downwards through you so hard that you force Shane's cock right out of you, and at the very moment you realize you're thinking about fighting it to keep him inside, another powerful jolt sucks him right back up into you deep, crushing down on him.

He groans wordlessly, and throbs hard in you, his cock lurching as he finally becomes too distracted to maintain rhythm, haphazardly driving into your fast clenching core, removing his hand from your nose and mouth. You hear a low moan just rise out of you that isn't even your own voice, and as, wide eyed, you silently gasp in a breath, Shane comes hard inside you, his strong fingers reach for your thighs, digging into your flesh as you begin to fuck onto his cock again. After falling off the cliff yourself, and the almost scary possession by his body, as though he was wringing an orgasm out of you against your will, so intense it was painful, you settle into the waves that keep washing over you as your wet little pussy just milks the come out of Shane in fast, tight bursts as you moan his name.

"Oh fuck, girl. Oh fuck..." Shane's in the throes too, shot after shot of his hot white cum fire from that big blunted tip you wanted so bad, and your purring, sore little pussy feels the recoil every time. You swear you feel it fill you uncomfortably full, and that you feel his hot jets firing against your cervix, that he's been punching for the last half hour. His cock just doesn't do anything in a small way.

You can't believe you're still coming, flutters still shuddering powerfully up almost to your belly button, as Shane collapses, sweaty and exhausted on top of you.

"Stay in a little longer.", you beg him softly. You'd feel silly to explain that it's comforting. He's still hard, and you want him there until he isn't at all anymore. You don't feel the slightest bit angry anymore, all the fight in you just gone, fucked out of you to oblivion. It would be easy to cry right now, you realize suddenly, but you don't want to. You want to force it down, force a smile on your face, and just hold onto this man as long as you can, in this, probably the only, capacity that you can.

"I ain't movin' a muscle." Shane answers, spent, pushing your wet hair aside, and kissing your forehead as the rain spits in the open window on both of you. "You feel better?"

"Yeah." You say thankfully, in a tiny voice. "I'm still coming a little."

"I know.", he says, smiling. "I can feel it."

"You're so good at that." Smiling up at him, you know that your age is showing. He's had lots of women, not just girls like you. You know you're not the most sophisticated lover he's had for sure, and you cringe a little inside that you sound like a little fangirl with a thing for men in uniform.

"Yeah, well, probably more experience than a nice guy could really claim to have. Probably more than I oughta have." He shrugs a little, a dark wry smile at the corners of his mouth.

The rain is letting up. Every ounce of your being has clawed and fought and resisted this moment. You know you are going back to your stupid Pontiac soon.

"You're really huge too." You don't know why you said that. Wow, this coming with a man thing makes you into an idiot. A flexible idiot, who puts her feet in her mouth with surprising ease.

Shane kisses your ear and gently bites the top before whispering, "You know what the final gift of a real big cock is?"

"No. Is this a joke?", you giggle. "You know I don't. You know this is the first huge one I've had the pleasure to know. What is it?"

"You're gonna come again when I pull it out." Shane drops that bombshell proudly.

As he does, you discover he's right. He's no longer hard, just rubbery and still huge, and as his cock pops and flops out of you, the relief of the vacancy he's left behind causes your body to snap back on itself, and pull you in tight on the nothingness, over and over, like an elastic band snapping inside you.

"Shane, oh..." You moan, as your hand instinctively claps over yourself to feel the ripples traveling up and down.

Shane grins, "That sight? Fuck. You're gonna make me need it again. Love seein' girls touch themselves.", he says as he zips his pants and does his belt back up.

Composing yourself again, you sit up, suddenly wanting to pull your dress over your head as quickly as possible, but back tucked in and perfect in his starched uniform, Shane sits you in his lap and pulls your dress over your head himself.

"Know what?", you say mischievously.

"What's that, darlin'?"

"I might need it again.", you tease, biting your lower lip.

"No doubt you will. I never got myself more than half way in.", Shane answers back with a grin, seeing your jaw drop, eyes wide in disbelief, as he slides across the seat and opens the door for you.

Shane might not be what everyone would consider a gentleman; he probably broke every rule in the book just now. Certainly every rule in the part of the book about the backseat of a police car and girls being back there. But he walked you back to your car after the rain broke, and kissed you one more time before sitting you back down in your own driver's seat.

Before you drive away, there's a rap on the window. As you roll it down, Shane leans in and says, "What are you doing in", checks his watch, and continues, "oh, say eight more hours? You up by then? I'm done shift around six. I know I'll want more by then. You want me to come over?"

"Yeah.", you smile, knowing you will wake up with an ache for him angrier than you've ever felt before. "I wanna see you out of that uniform. And I think I wanna see what that second half feels like..."


	2. Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After processing a grisly motorcycle accident, Deputy Shane Walsh is left to process the wear and tear on his own psyche. Angry with the world in general, he's burning out. But before his ashes hit the floor, a few kind words from a girl who just might know a little about what he's seen that day might just change things, for the night anyway.
> 
> This is a first person story, all in Shane's voice, and in his head. Shane, psychological studies,strong opinions, and smut... this one is dark.

"Hey? Nuther one'a these, huh?"

I know I probably shouldn't. Today was my first shift and I still have three more twelves to pull. I guess I shouldn't be a county over drinkin' in my uniform either, but fuck it.

Most days, I love my job. Nothin' better. You know, what they say about it is true? There's no greater autonomy than your own beat. I mean, that's just it. Some guys want to move up, and it's all about the career for them, ascending the ranks. That's what this is for Rick. Not for me. For me it's all about livin' day to day. I like just getting out there and doing my job. It's never the same twice, and for the most part, no one tells me how to do it. I'd never say it to him, I mean, he's my best friend, and my brother, and my partner at least when we got a Republican in and we have the funding for it, but I never did think Rick was in it for the right reasons, or really cut out for the life. I was. I was born to this.

Days like this though, no one's born for. No one. No matter how tough. I'm tough, but I wish I was half as tough as I have to act on a day like today. I handle it pretty much better than any of the rest. Some of 'em think drinking it off is a problem. I don't. I know who I am. I'm not some crybaby bitch who's gonna go whining to a shrink. Now that, that is a monumental waste of time and bother, dragging up the dead an' sniffin' at them like that does a thing for anyone, when you really oughta grab your shovel, and bury it like a man. Besides, shrinks don't get it, an' they never will. They can't. They don't know what blood smells like.

Meat and metal. You get enough'a that shit poured out on the pavement, like today, an' that's what it smells like. That's why afterwards, all I got the appetite for is whiskey. Don't even want a beer. Don't want to smell a can or a bottle cap. I like somethin' hard, poured in a glass. An' this's what I like about this place; they got clean ice. A joint makes too much at once it gets tasting metallic. Fine most'a the time, I ain't picky. But you smell that shit all day? Last thing you want to do is taste it.

"Put it on the tab?', Smiley asks me, as if he doesn't know already, an' as if he ever plans on collecting.

"Yeah. Thanks, man."

Now, Smiley. Obviously, not his real name. Guy never smiles, not because he's some sullen fuck, but he's tryin' not to scare off the business. Guy's at a huge disadvantage already, with that Boston accent, but he got sick of the winters, an' let's face it, this's the best place to live on earth. Those chumps gotta have somethin', I say. That's why I can't get too worked up over the Falcons always losing. No matter what, we win. All those fuckers up north have to live in a shithole. Joke's on them. Let 'em have a trophy. Empty fuckin' victory.

But back to Smiley an' not scaring off the customers. Real reason for his being such a closed lipped motherfucker is that both his front teeth are dead, turned black like coal. See, he used to think it would be a good idea to be his own bouncer, and he used to think lipping off was a good intimidation method. Missed the clear distinction between up there and down here, that we throw punches first and ask the questions later. 

He never collects on my tab because I stepped between him and a good ol' boy who'd have been pretty dangerous if he wasn't so damned slow, leading with a gut full of about fifty pounds of old shit made of deep fried everything. 'Course, that doesn't matter much when you're leading with a hunting knife. Hellbilly there heard Smiley's accent and forgot we're almost two hundred years past the civil war, and came after him with his knife out, some big thing, handle made out of the antler off the buck he shot the year before. Gotta love these ones that make their way down outta the hills. Never hesitate to remind me that choke holdin's illegal, while I'm foiling their attempt at a murder. But Smiley's loyal to me for life now, and I drink free here, so the drive out of the way is worth it. An' Smiley's learned to tread light and fake a drawl, not that any of us have one'a those anyway.

I don't know how many this is for me, and that's how I like it. Don't remember how many drinks, don't remember how many dead. An' now I'm drinking until I forget how many decapitated heads I've had to look for after I find a body in a thousand dollar carbon fiber jacket, and a big black puddle of that stinking meat and metal shit poured out on the asphalt.

I fucking hate motorcycles. See one of those on the road, an' the fucker on it? I want to pull that douchenozzle peckerheaded fuck over and beat his ass until he's half dead. The stupid little girls riding them? Or those cutesy little scooters painted up like bumblebees and shit? I wanna drag them by the ear back to their husband, or their daddy's house, and ask him what he was thinking letting her do something so astronomically stupid. If their dad or their husband can't bring them under control, they oughta be locked up for their own protection if they're that fuckin' stupid. All of 'em. I don't know if these fuckers with bikes have a death wish, or if they just like making guys like me spend the afternoon searching the ditch for their missing heads.

I guess I probably should'a changed before coming here. Draws too much attention. You know, I get so fucking sick of it. Pisses me off. Half the eyes on me at any given time are trying to penetrate me with some kinda hate filled hollow point mind bullets. Buncha self righteous assholes. You know what I hate? Teachers. Well, except Lori. Lori's fine. Not that I don't think Rick should talk a little more sense to her than he does, but he's a whipped man, an' I get it. He loves her. That's how it goes. Like David Allen Coe says, "pussy whipped again". I'm not saying I don't get that way sometimes too. No shame in it. Chicks is what it's all about and you can't help comin' under a spell from time to time. Hate students too. And most office workers. Environmentalists. Lawyers, unless it's the prosecutor an' he ain't a complete chicken shit. Media types. Celebrities. That ass on the 49ers who won't stand for Old Glory. Hell, most people. People fucking suck. And all those people who suck? They hate me right back. They all hate cops. And they all seem to have lots of time to fucking blog and twat about it. And they're a crafty bunch too. So many fucking talents. Make their signs and placards, and can't even plan it out enough to make the words fit, without crushing half their false accusations about how I'm a racist and committing all sorts of brutality up into the right hand margin. So, you know they've thought about it. A lot. That's why they planned out their sign so well. 

I don't care. They don't know shit. They don't know while they were in a Spacebook showdown, I was lookin' for a head in a gutter half a block from the body it belongs to before I found it, or that it's gonna be something I see and don't fucking mention all the way to my grave. They don't think about how I had to go to the guy's wife's work, where she's in the middle of pumping a bottle full of breastmilk for their three month old, wait for the receptionist to tell her to button back up, walk in there to find her mildy pissed at me, an' that's how the whole thing is when I have to tell her that her husband's dead, an' she needs to prepare for a closed casket. 

They don't think about it enough to consider I feel like I got hit with a truck myself when this woman who was annoyed with me a few seconds earlier collapses into my arms an' tells me she wants to die, and I gotta try to explain the reasons not to for her. They think I don't have a hole blown in my chest when I walk outta there, sit down in my car an' see her tear stains on the shoulder of my uniform still? An' I gotta go through my life, knowin' that's what life really is? That's what love comes to. Ruin. That's what becomes of a first date to the Tast-e-Freeze, an' then a cheesy wedding dance to Lone Star. It comes to that. A dead man, an' a woman who wishes she was, an' a baby who'll end up with a stepdad who'll probably make her wish she'd never been born. But it's my job; my job as a cop, as a man. I make jokes like it's easy, smile like I always mean it, never let on. Because if you did let on, you wouldn't be the fuckin' Thin Blue Line, would you?

I have nightmares instead of sleepin', an' that's how most of us live, a couple years into this. All of us followed by a string of ghosts that gets longer all the time. Whatever, man. Every asshole that looks at me like that, gives the stink eye to my pistol, that has somethin' to say, I say, go on then. You don't know shit about the world, you pussy. They go an' pay more for counselling than I make in a year to talk about shit like their fucking divorce, or that someone hurt their feelings with a fat joke, or wasn't understanding about some phase they went through when they were fuckin' sixteen, or to complain we don't have eighteen official bathrooms. Live your fuckin' life; how much damned approval do people think they need? Such steaming bullshit. I saw my thirteenth decapitation today, and I won't say a word. I'll drink and bury that shit where it can't haunt any of these special snowflakes. I don't even feel it anymore when someone whips a phone out on me and starts recording the moment I pull 'em over. None of it matters. I'm a fuckin' man. My oath is all that matters to me. Me. My honor. The shield. Fuck the haters; I'll protect 'em anyway. 

See, that's the difference between me an' all those people who I can't stand, who hate me right back. They'd just as soon see me dead. I devoted my life to protecting theirs, regardless.

But I still wish I'd have changed into plainclothes. Don't need the rubberneckin' tonight, uniform's hot, and I still have my kevvie on. Gets back to Rick, he'll be on my ass about it too. Loves the rules. What a guy.

This place is gettin' way too gentrified. Not just Smiley's. The entirety of The South. My head's hanging, an' not just because I'm getting right, finally, but I don't want to see all these beards. And hell yeah, I mean that both ways you could take it. Maybe I'm just a pissed off sonofabitch tonight, I don't know. Don't feel like seeing an asymetrical haircut, or one of those stupid Hitler Youth pompadours that obnoxious little fuck from Canada blew up even down here, or one single pair of glasses you don't have a prescription for. Yeah, I'm a sonofabitch. I'll own that.

The room's in soft focus, an' I can feel it moving around me. Ask me, booze is the best drug there is. I like the ascent into being drunk, because I feel the crash hard. Probably why I'm asking for another, but I can't stop. Some bad nights, it's like being a shark. You stop swimming, or drinking, like a fish, and you're dead. You gotta climb. You gotta keep the room moving and all the colors bright an' blurred. You gotta keep it so you can't feel your face or your fingertips. You know the sweet spot I'm talking about, when the party is still pumping, before you start feeling like you're drowning, remember that you gotta work hungover tomorrow. 

My hands ever start to shake, I'll slow down. In the dusky haze, I can watch my numb hand reach for the glass and hit it, first try, even though it doesn't even feel like part of my body anymore. 

You ever stop to wonder how you can always see your own reflection so clearly in the mirror behind a bar? I mean, it's all lined up with bottles, an' that should obfiscate things. Mirror's always filthy. An' it's dark, backlit with garish neon. Then there's the thick reeking smoke. I never know why then it's the clearest picture you ever see of yourself. Just another in the list of things I'd never confess to, but I get lost in that, looking at myself, seeing my face how the people who don't live in my head see it. I look like the picture of me hanging in the station. I look alone. See, I never feel that. I feel the weight of all the coffins I'm bearing now. I forget that people don't see all the ghosts. Not that there's any more lonely feeling than that weight. No one sees that though. I'm a damn good lookin' man, an' I know that's what they see. Flex a little, Shane. Let 'em watch.

So, I was so lost in that, I barely noticed her until she'd sat down on the stool next to me.

Now, I notice chicks, ones like her anyway, even on a day I gotta smell dead blood. Who am I kidding? Sometimes especially those days. Those days, even I sometimes want a sweet girl to go home to. I think about that sometimes, what that would be like. Like if I actually had a girl I could talk to about it, some girl who knew how to carry that shit too, you know? Not some pushy shit talker. Those people are spills. All of 'em build up baggage over nothin', then need help to carry it. Chicks are all disasters, fuckin' toxic spills. But what if I had one that wasn't? I think that sometimes. Maybe she'd already have supper ready when I came in the door, and she'd hug me, kiss me hard with tongue and grind against me a little, let me feel her. Pour me a drink, let me sit and think, watch Jeopardy. I'm good at Jeopardy. Not those gay categories, like Broadway and Classical Music and shit. I ain't cultured enough for that, let's put it that way. But American History? College Sports Teams? Automotive "P"arts? Watch me clear that shit. Nothing clears your head like Jeopardy. I DVR that shit daily. But, back to the chick I want. Maybe if I had one like that, after a drink or two, I'd lay my head down on her and tell her everything. She'd tell me she loved me and fuck me stupid until morning. I probably wouldn't be a county over drinking in my uniform. 

Problem is, reality never lives up to expectations. Maybe they cook for a few weeks, but you can't ever really talk to them. Then the fucking part goes to hell too. Soon you come home, and it's just all the lights on, an' she's got a headache and linty-cat-fur yoga pants, and all she wants to talk about is her dumbass friend's twatter feed or whatever shit. You're the one who saw a headless horseman, but she'll be the one crying about an underhanded compliment she got. An' she watches fucking Dancing with the Stars, an', man, you know it's over then. They don't want to hear about your day, they make you order the food, you'll never get head again, an' you're footing every bill, an' you better believe that.

I'm an optimist though. What? Don't I make it sound that way?

The reflection of the chick in the mirror sitting beside me is gorgeous. I mean, she's that type that's beautiful and you can't be sure she can even tell, the way her big shy eyes only want to look down, and she's always struggling not to bite her nails. Probably never taken a selfie in her short little life, scared it might steal her soul. But she's slim and straight like a willow tree, long legs and arms, and tits put up so high you can tell they don't drop when she takes her bra off. Looks like she runs like a deer.

So I sneak a look over at her, an' it's even better than that. She's got tiny little hands and feet, like a storybook princess. I like pretty girls; don't give a damn about hair color. Everyone knows they all change it all the time anyway. But I do like a natural blonde like this. Not that pale blonde where their face disappears when they take their face off. That dark blonde that fades out to flax, with a ripe wheat field in between. Those chicks still keep their features when they wash their face. And it's long, and thick, and hanging down her back. This girl's wearing some little hot pink dress, sides cut out. Now, think what you want. I like that nineties shit. Reminds me of high school. But she doesn't carry it like a skank. She adjusted her skirt, smoothed it down and crossed her legs all demure like this was Sunday School when she sat down. Holds her shoulders square. Her face is pretty, jaw to match her posture, nose like a kitten, lips that make me want to do things to her. She's making these nervous faces, like she wants to say something but doesn't know how.

My heart hurts tonight. I'm not going to put that on someone else, and girls like this are the biggest challenge, and I don't even know that I'm up to it tonight.  
Feelings like this aren't familiar; I need another round.

"Hey, uh, Smiley? Set me up with another?"

Her clear soft voice drifts like distant bells on the wind. "Smiley?", the girl says, "I'll get it. And give me another Gravedigger?"

She leans in close to me, and I feel her little hand touch my arm cautiously, like she's petting a bear, and she says like she's testing a password for the forty thieves' den, "Blue lives matter."

I can't help but smile. She sounds so damned nervous, it's cute. And she smells so good, like cupcakes with sprinkles on top.

"Nice to hear that. Do to us, I guess.", I answer back, trying not to sound as gruff as the smoky room makes my larynx feel. But she sees me smiling at her, and she's smiling back. Smiley hands me the drink. 

"You know, I don't remember the last time a girl got my drink. Kinda doesn't feel right.", I tell her, half grin and a shrug. "But you know, between us, he never makes me pay anyway. So you really shouldn't have."

Sweet little thing laughs, sounds like a wedding toast. "I'll remember that for next time! Let you get mine?"

"Yeah, give me my pants back." I say with a wry shrug, not expecting her to get it or laugh, but she does.

"You're funny. And a hero. I mean it. I've been watching you all night. I don't know if you're allowed to say, but, rough day?", she says, turning on her stool and looking so earnestly in my eyes I almost have to look away from all that sincerity. 

"Ah, I dunno. It's rough work sometimes, but I couldn't see myself doin' anything else. Best job there is."

"Well, it's a calling.", she says, reaching over, one of her tiny tapered fingertips grazing my name badge, "Deputy Walsh? I want to thank you for your service. I mean, I can't imagine how hard it must get sometimes. No one thinks about you guys and what you go through. Big things, little things."

"Yeah, well, you leave that to me." Burdens are so much lighter when anyone fathoms you're carrying one. It's so easy to smile around this girl. "You're such a sweetheart, though."

"No, I mean it.", she's emphatic, "People talk so much shit these days. No one thinks about the reality of your life. You swear to protect and serve, and then you have to do it, no matter what it costs you. Nearly everyone you deal with treats you like an adversary. You see people at their worst all the time. And that's the best of it. I feel like a jerk even mentioning the heinous stuff I know you have to deal with. I know there's got to be times you're the first guy at a terrible scene, all by yourself with that."

The glass is sweating in my hand. I've been forgetting to drink, and that clean ice is melting. I take a sip, watching the cold water swirl with the whiskey before I look back at the girl sitting next to me. Now, normally, I'd work that the smile I gave a girl on a night like this wouldn't be a weak one, but her big blue eyes are looking into mine, and her lips are parted, like she's hanging on the ticking seconds, waiting on nothin' but me, an' I can't fight a smile off, shaking my head at my dumb self.

"Well, I hate fucking motorcycles, let's put it that way.", I say under my breath.

She just smiles, knowing I want her to think I was joking. I have a good mind she knows I'm not, but this sweet girl just wants to make me happy, so she follows my lead.

"Bet you do.", she says softly, and those pillowy lips kiss my cheek.

Now, this is the part of that sweet spot of optimum drunkenness I was thinking about, that no one talks about. This drunk, yeah, my face is numb and my fingers and feet too, but one part of me seems to feel all the sensation lost everywhere else. I want this girl bad, and it hits me like a Freightliner. I can't stop it, and I don't want to if I could. I'm hard for her, and it feels fucking good to feel good.

"I saw a motorcycle accident once.", she carries on, "Back when I was just in high school still. I was driving to my Grandma's at lunch time, and there was a guy on a bike ahead of me, sort of like a half a block ahead. He tried to make a left turn, just got smoked. It happened so fast. Just something that would have been a fender bender in a car. But I'm still not sure what I saw. He came apart like Lego right there in front of the abandoned Blockbuster."

My chest just floods like a carburetor. She shivers a little, looks away, uncomfortable she told me this. I can't have that. Dropping off my stool to the floor to my feet, I see my reflection. The dashing cop wrapping his arms protectively around this sweet beautiful little thing, and it just makes me harder. I'm not making anyone any promises, but tonight, I love this girl. I really think I do. She looks so pretty with me, turning into my arms, letting me pull her little body close. Everything a man wants to see when he sees himself.

"Hey, hey, hey, shh.", I tell her, touching her soft hair. "That's why I do it, girl. So someone like you'd never have to look any closer at a thing like that. Don't think about it. Think about nice things, alright, darlin'?"

She's not weak. My observation? The sweetest ones never are. Takes an inner strength that the whole world attacks and tries to kill and beat out of a person to stay that way. She doesn't cry, doesn't say anything mopey. She presses her tight, warm body against mine, so she's in contact with every inch of me that she can be. I can feel her firm tits press into my chest, sort of flatten against me, she's pressed so close. She lifts up on her toes, holding onto my arms, and I feel the the warmth of her sweet breath condensing on my ear before her words come trailing out of her, all breathy, right there.

"You're the nice thing I wanna think about."

"I'm not that nice." I try to warn her. She just doesn't believe me.

One of her little hands sneaks down from my arm, disappearing between our close bodies, right there at the bar. She moans, like a real ragged breathy moan, when it touches my cock. She squeezes it gently, and tilts her head back, her eyes all full of sex, breathing hard through her parted lips. She looks like I'm hurting her already. It's so hot I can feel the tip of my cock getting wet and my balls tighten. I need this girl. I'm gonna fuck her, and we both know it.

"Ah, fuck. Baby. Don't make me take The Lord's Name in vain. Not with the whole bar lookin' at me.", I beg her, falling on her mercy. She's kissing my neck, and her hand is right where she left it, and even though I'm in uniform with my name and badge number on my chest, I just don't have the heart to move it. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Natalie."

Fuck. That's perfect. She looks like a Natalie. 

"So you don't have to call me Deputy all night; it's Shane."

"Shane?", she says, biting her lower lip, her hand still warm on my cock, she strokes it a little through my pants, keeping her body close enough that no one can see. "My first kiss was a Shane."

"Yeah?", I ask her, with a grin, trying to distract myself from her fist pumping on me. That might bother some guys, but I don't care. I like it. She's flirting. I'll erase any other man like he never laid with her. "He a cop too?"

"No. A bullrider.", she says, the shrug of her shoulder drawing her hand back up and down my shaft. "It was just on the cheek. I didn't really like him. I really like you."

"Oh. A bullrider.", I say back. I can feel myself pull a face like she just told me a joke. She's so cute, the way she says everything so innocent while she's standing here, grabbing my cock in a room full of people. "You, uh, you gonna rob me'a my virtue in front'a all these people, huh, girl, or should we get outta here?", I ask her.

She just nods her head yes, those lips still parted. She finally brings herself to let go of me, but fuck, I love how hard it was for her to do it, her little hand easing away slowly, back up onto my arm, as she steps back.

Now, I know from the night I helped Smiley out that he's got rooms upstairs. That's where they patched me up after bubba got me pretty good in the arm with the anter end of that stupid knife before I choked his dumb ass out cold.

"Hey, Smiley?', I yell out over the noise, nodding him over. I don't want to ask about the room too loud, standing here with my arm around sweet little Natalie. She's seems like a nice girl. Wouldn't want any of my dirt gettin' on her name. Not sure she wants the whole room to know what I'm about to do to her. 

When he comes sauntering up over to me, mopping the sticky bar like that's the main thing he's got to do, an' we're an afterthought, I ask him discreetly, "All those rooms you got up stairs rented out?"

Smiley forgets himself and laughs, showing off those black teeth of his. "No. All I've got is vacancy." He voids the cash box and pulls a key out from under the tray. "Here. The one at the end of the hall's the nicest one I got. It ain't The Ritz."

Natalie isn't embarrassed, I realize. She's proud'a me, doesn't care who sees it. As Smiley hands me the key, she turns to me, grabs ahold of my bicep, both little hands, and bounces up and down on her toes, all excited, and says to me, "I can't believe we're doing this! This is so exciting!"

Fact is, I don't want to be in this dark pit breathin' fire any longer than I have to be. It isn't like I was here to drink for fun. I was here to lose my own head, and it was working, but the ascent can only ever last so long, and then there's the crash. Close your eyes and all you see are those gnarly black thorns growing over you and sucking you under. The good time never lasts, and all the ghouls come back at once. I don't wallow in those waters, an' I certainly ain't afraid. But I'd just as soon avoid the tormentor's hours before dawn. This sweet little thing is pullin' me through. I just wanna take this girl, soft hair and golden skin and pink lips that want me, an' lose myself in her. Girl like this wipes your hard drive in a way whiskey never will. Right now, I don't remember a thing. I don't care about missing heads, or all the blood, or that we're headed to ruin, or that I'm the only fuckin' one who ever seems to see that. All I care about is that Sweet Little Thing wants to make me happy, an' I sure don't intend to stop her gettin' her way.

So I kiss Natalie hard, right here at the bar, one more time. Her lips are so soft, they really absorb a kiss, an' she's so compliant, sliding them around mine, letting my tongue into her mouth. She lets me shotgun the oxygen right out of her lungs. She's mine. She's already trying to feel my cock through her dress, pushing onto me like everyone isn't watching. I gotta get her upstairs. She's got my dick's undivided attention, and someone needs to be distracted.

"Don't do that.", I whisper in her ear. "We gotta walk through this place. I can't do it in my uniform, half cocked. Just wait 'til we're upstairs, alright? Can't hide it walkin' you outta here."

A blush shines on right through her tan. Girls don't blush anymore, not really. She musta been raised religious. I like girls like that, the ones that don't know what they're really supposed to do. The shit they do decide to do? Always the hottest. One of the important pillars of The Gospel of Shane, right there.

So it's becoming apparent to me that there's not a safe thing to think or say about this girl. Best strategy, I think, is expediency. So I take her by the arms, almost like I'm arresting her, and just move her to the staircase at the back of the bar, following so close behind her I can almost feel her.

Once I get her on the stairs, it's like we're in a different world. Somethin' about it reminds me of being under water. You get out of a bar room proper, an' the temperature just drops. The air's cleaner. That hum that shakes your skull the way a stove's elements rattle when the pressure drops low enough disappears when you didn't even know it was there, an' you feel so still. You can be three steps up that staircase, an', man, you might as well be a world away. Even the terrible music sounds like listenin' to that huge conch shell from Hawaii my grandma used to have. All of a sudden, I can hear how fast Natalie is breathing. All of a sudden, she's shy.

Part of me, an' you can draw your own conclusions on which part, knows she wants me, an' wants to give it to her right there; just pull her down on her ass, push that pink dress up, an' spread those long tanned legs apart, right here on the stairs. That part of me doesn't even care if we get undressed, doesn't care if we get caught, doesn't even want to wait to get to the room at the end of the hall. That part of me wants to shove aside her panties, that I know full well are wet, unzip, and just drive into her. But with a girl so nice she could make me feel good on a night like tonight, I won't let that part win, at least not yet. Not when she's turning around on the stairs, that hint of fear in her big sweet eyes. She really hasn't done anything like this before. I believe her now.

"You nervous, sweetheart?", I ask her, stepping up to the top stair, putting my arm around her, burying my face in her hair.

"Yeah." She admits it quietly, biting her pouty lower lip, just letting her teeth slide up over it. Her heels just keep clicking tracks on the hardwood floors though, as she slowly adds, "But I want this."

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, you know that right?", I ask her, standing at the door, with the key ready. It's dark up here, nothing but the lights from a city at night coming in through a couple barred windows. "I'm not gonna hurt you. You're in control, alright, girl? You feel the need to stop, slow down, hit me upside the head, do what you gotta do, alright? But there's nothin' to be afraid of with me." I'm standin' toe to toe with her, an' she's leaning into me again while I finger a strand of her long hair. A tiny smile replaces that look of fear, and she kisses me and turns my hand on the key.

"I'll remember that, Shane.", she says, bit of scamp back in her voice. Little brat all of a sudden remembers her new plaything, grabs my cock and pulls me through the door with it, slams it behind us.

Room's not bad; bed, dresser, nightstand with a lamp. All kinda old. No television. Bathroom looks like a horror movie set, an' not necessarily in a bad way; just a lot of tile. Hardwood floors. There's a confusing neon sign on the wall, blaring red, an' the only light there is. It's written in script, and I can't make out what it says. Once you're a cop, an' I mean real police, you can't walk into a room for the rest of your life and not take stock of the place before you do anything else, no matter the circumstances. It's just the way it is.

But little Natalie. Man, little Natalie knows how to command a man's attention. She stands up on her tippy toes, wraps her arms around me, and shoves me back as hard as she can up against the door she just slammed shut. It's like she can't get herself close enough to me to be satisfied, and she's just writhing trying to, slithering up me. I know what she wants to feel, so I take her sharp hipbones in hand and thrust against her. 

"Ah, Shane...", she moans out kinda high and quiet between her kissing on my neck. "You're still hard."

I can't help it. I laugh at her.

"What else would you expect?"

"I don't know." She sounds shy now. Not so shy though, that she isn't grinding up against my cock like her life depends on it, an' moaning about it.

She's a sweet girl, and if this is all she wanted to do all night, that'd have to just be fine with me, but since we're here and she's rubbin' on me like a cat in heat, I really do want to see her out of her dress. And the way she's moving on me? She makes me want to come. I kiss her candy lips again, and move my hands 'round to the small of her back, drop them down onto her ass. Feels like she climbs stairs for a fuckin' living.

"Unzip me.", she pleads, pulling back from my kiss, and giving me that sincerity again. 

Now, I feel like she has something to say, but all she wants to do is listen to me. All I really want right now though, is to take her orders and get her out of that dress, so I oblige, and she slides it off her shoulders, and it falls to the floor at her feet. She just steps out of it, leaving it on the scuffed up hardwood.

I finally get a look at her. One of my aunts growing up had a collection of old Barbie dolls, still in the box, an' I still remember seein' the original Malibu Barbie, and wondering why real girls didn't look more like that. Now, I feel like I'm seein' her, come to life, because little Natalie is standing in front of me with those big blue eyes and a sweet kind smile, and she's wearing nothing but her long hair hanging over her perky tits, a pair of aqua panties and these see through sandals on sky high neon yellow heels. Most guys, probably, that stuff is wasted on. Cops? We're trained to notice everything. Can't help it if we tried.

"Let me look at you." Damn. She's got me almost breathless. I step up to her, and gently push her hair back over one of her shoulders so I can see her a little better, before putting my hands around her tiny waist. When my fingers touch her bare skin, she breathes harder, an' I can feel her sort of flinch towards me. "I'm trying to take my time, baby, but you're not making it very easy."

"I'm not trying to make it easy.", she answers back, the hands she's had resting on my chest sliding down me as she does, falling to her knees on the floor, "I'm trying to make it hard." My dick's so hard it's uncomfortable at this point, an' she's just kneeling there on the floor, rubbing it with both her hands through my uniform. 

I can't take it anymore. I reach down an' undo my pants. She looks up at me like a deer in the headlights as my heavy cock falls out and clubs her in the face. Like clubbin' a baby seal. She looks so sweet, I almost feel guilty.

But not that guilty, because she moans softly, and takes it by the root in her hand, and starts licking it like an ice cream cone that's melting too fast, still looking up at me with that earnest expression, eyes all wide. 

"You taste good.", she tells me.

"Is that right?", I ask her, wishing I still had the door or a wall behind me to lean against. 

"Yeah. You taste a little bit sweet, sort of like buckwheat honey or something. I like it. Do you want me to make you come in my mouth?" 

Yeah, she asks me that. And the whole time, she's still licking, popping the tip in and out of her mouth, just past her lips. Now, I love head. An' men always wish chicks'd make us feel like this, like they are just hungry an' horny to do it, like it's making them wet.

"Ah, fuck. Darlin', you just keep getting better.", I say, picking her up from the floor and pushing her back until I've thrown her on the bed.

I need to get undressed. Odd thing about girls, especially the ones who respect the brass? They always seem to feel a little weird messing with a uniform. I can tell Natalie won't. So while I'm getting my gun belt off, an' otherwise disrobing, I'm watching her on the bed.

She rolls over, and I see those panties have a big heart shaped cutout takes out most of the back of them. My heart sort of skips. I've never seen a girl in somethin' like that outside of magazines. It's that good girl thing again, where she's all sweet and shy, and such a little pleaser, but she's so naughty, an' it makes you realize she's probably going to be down with whatever I ask her for. Even if she isn't, she's going to want to be.

I don't know why I wanted her on the bed either. I like it when chicks suck me off kneeling on the floor, probably the best as a rule, or sitting on the edge of the bed while I fuck their mouth standing in front of them. But there's something about tonight, and Natalie. I want her in the bed with me.

As soon as I'm naked, she pulls me down on the bed next to her, springs squeaking. I pull her on top of me, grabbing the back of one of her smooth thighs and pulling it up across me. I need to kiss her, need to thrust against her. I think I really need to fuck her.

"Shane...", she moans again, an' her hips just grind on me as soon as I start thrusting up against her. "You feel so good. Ah, fuck, Shane. You make me want this so bad."

"Feelin's mutual.", I tell her. "You're so fuckin' beautiful." 

I want to tell her I'd be a pile of ash by now if it wasn't for her, and that she knows exactly what a man likes to hear when he's hard, and that I think she might be the sweetest thing I ever met, but I don't, because then she'd probably know she was right in assuming it was a rough fuckin' day today.

Instead, I spank her, then snap the elastic on her panties. "I like these."

"Oh yeah?", she says playfully, turning around on top of me, so she's riding me backwards, so I can see that heart shaped cutout, her heart shaped ass. She turns an' looks at me over her shoulder, grabbing my thighs and grinding on me hard. She still has her heels on too. She's just playing though, because she turns back around soon, and kisses me. It's nice. Night like this, I like that, and I always like a cocktease, as long as she eventually lets me come.

She's laid down on me, and between her and me, those aqua silk panties of hers are soaked right through. She's still kissing me; my mouth, all down my jaw, my neck. This girl even sucks on my ears, tongues them with the underside of her tongue, an' keeps moaning that I'm making her want to come while she kisses them. Most girls don't. I'm not insecure about a thing; it's hard to be when you got a cock the size of mine. Hard not to be, well, cocky. But I'll admit, I wonder what it means girls avoid my ears like they do. Before I got big enough to beat the shit out of anyone, I got called Dumbo from time to time at school, so there's somethin' to me about a girl who wants to kiss, and lick and suck them, whisper how bad she wants me in them, that makes me feel like my dick is two feet long, not just one. 

"Baby?", I hear myself say, "I need you."

She just starts sliding down me, not missing a beat. Breathes out all gentle, "I know. I just want to make you feel good."

Everything she does makes me feel good, from the first words she said to me. Now as she inches down my body, kissing me as she goes, I can feel the insides of her smooth thighs sliding down the outsides of my legs, her firm little tits skipping down my torso, her warm breath and moist kisses making it to the tip of my cock, her long silky hair tickling my sides until she's down so low that it's spread out around my hips and she's got herself positioned between my legs, kneeling on the bed. 

I don't know why, but I feel like two people at once. It's like there's this melancholy to knowin' this girl is pulling me through tonight, but I still know what the whole world is; just a gutter, an' hopelessly lost, one big pointless exercise that kills you slow. I wish she didn't have to live here, even if I know I need to. But then she makes me feel like I forget all that too, an' I feel like I did in high school, foolin' around with a pretty girl when you think the world can be anything, an' nothing is so bad it can't be fixed. I think that's why I wanted her to lay on the bed with me, not kneelin' on the floor. It's the feeling close to her that's making me forget.

Laying there, looking down at her, she's got that ass of hers, in those cutout panties, up in the air, and I can't help but groan when she finally puts my cock in her mouth. I know I shouldn't have, but I thrust into her, held her head down. Only a little, and I was gentle, but a lot of girls don't like that. Sweet Little Thing, though, she doesn't care. Her mouth is way too full to smile, cheeks already sucked in tight on me. But she reaches one of her hands up and touches my hand on the back of her head, looks me in the eyes like she liked it.

Her mouth is nice and wet inside, and she's not afraid to use it. She's not going that fast, and I'm glad, because I wanna make this last, it feels so good. I like when a girl has a mouth that's either a little hot or a little cool. Makes you feel it all more. Natalie runs hot, and her tongue's strong, and she slithers it back and forth, pumping me in and out of her hot mouth, sort of sucking me in hard, and pulling me out against the suction. I don't know what feels better, the going in or pulling out. Every time she pulls me almost out, she flicks her tongue over the tip of my cock, licking away the come that keeps leaking out of me. 

I don't think she can fit all of it in, but she's trying, ramming her face down on it far enough that I can feel that sort of heaving in her chest from trying not to gag. I wouldn't care if she did, but girls don't know that. I like looking down at her an' seeing her eyes watering, because I can tell she's loving it, straddling one of my thighs now, grinding against it. 

I'm encouraging her, but I'm trying so hard not to come that I don't know what I'm sayin' to her. Probably just a lot of "Fuck, Natalie.", an' shit like that.

She's moaning the whole time she's doing it, just enough I can feel the low hum of it in my balls. I had a girlfriend once, got that idiotic Cosmopolitan magazine. I picked it up once, read the advice they gave women. It would have sent any straight red blooded man headin' for the hills. I don't know. They suggested a woman actually hum a tune while they gave head. Bitch did that to me, I'd probably either laugh at her or sort of wish I could hit her, not that I ever would. Fuckin' annoying as shit, an' would just prove how fuckin' dumb she was. But those real muffled moans that Natalie's making, every so often, while she's grinding her hips on my thigh and I can feel she's wet and liking it enough to moan? She's probably a Jeopardy champion. 

She still hasn't even used her hands, other than to wipe away the trickles of her warm, slick slobber that was running down my balls. So her hands are wet too, gripping my hips for leverage to help her get me as far into her mouth as possible, but now I feel her sliding them towards the base of my cock. Everything is slippery; my cock, her mouth, her hands, my balls, the insides of my legs. I fucking love that so much it makes me shudder. I'm trying not to thrust into her mouth, but my hips keep snapping up to meet her. I'm trying not to come, but she's trying so hard to make me.

Her hands close around me, and it's a hopeless feeling, like a python coiled around you three times. I know I'm a goner. I know no matter how hard I fight it, she's going to make me come soon, and she just won this tug of war. She wraps her right hand around my shaft and starts chasing her mouth up and down me with a tight twisting grip. Her other one, she's playing with my balls. I've lost all my resolve, an' I'm groaning, can't even say her name anymore. Soon I'll fall off the edge, and I'll yell out how she's making me come, like I can't help saying it. But just when I feel my balls pull up tight to my body, and my cock feels like it's about to burst, she pops it out of her mouth, and trails her soft lips down my shaft, until her head's between my thighs, and she sucks both my balls into her mouth, rolling them around with her tongue. She never takes her hand away, just keeps stroking me slow and lazy enough to pull me back. 

She's gonna make me come the way I make chicks come - so hard that it's just mean. 

I've lost track of how many times she's done that at this point, getting her mouth back on my cock, and sucking me off until I'm about to nut, an' then backing off and sucking my balls back down. It feels fucking better every time. I'm looking at her in a daze, thinkin' how she's too hot to be real, an' this must be some kind of Hotel California shit. Not the Eagles, man. I hate the Eagles.

But this time, when she's about to close her lips around the tip of my cock again, before she does, she hesitates for a moment, looking up in my eyes, and she asks me, "Shane? I think I want to make you come in my mouth this time, if that's okay with you?"

"So sweet.", I rasp out. My mouth is parched from drinking, and breathing hard, and grunting and groaning because she's so good at this. I sort of want to say no, just pull her up to lay in my arms, and kiss on her awhile, then get to have her do it all again, but I need to come. My legs are shaking, and I can feel hers are too. I just nod yes back to her, and try not to pass out when I feel her start sucking on me hard again.

She saves all the biggest fireworks for the finale. She sucks harder, does something like spirals with her tongue that feel amazing but I have no idea how she's doing it, runs my tip over the rough roof of her mouth and rams it way down her throat, and she does it with the precision of a drum machine, chasing with her slick hand, gripping me tight. She gets how this part works. The more consistent she lets it build up, the harder it all lets go. She doesn't change a thing, just keeps going until I'm right out of my mind. There's tension in my whole body; my neck's stiff an' I realize I'm staring up at the ceiling when I'd rather be looking at her, but it's out of my control. I can't even move my eyes. My legs and feet are cramping, an' the only part of me that seems capable of movement anymore is my cock that she's got twitching in her tight sexy mouth. I'm close. I know I'm gonna buck like a bull when I come, and I'd like to warn her, but I can't do that either. 

I can't handle the pressure any longer. I fight it, because I love this feeling right before everything bursts, an' this is about as intense and protracted as I can remember it being. I want to hang in freefall as long as I can, but all of a sudden, sweet little Natalie's hot, wet mouth has all the control. 

The pin hits the shell, and I just sort of groan, "Ah, fuck. Ah, Natalie, fuck. I'm coming.", and I don't want to be rough with her, but I can't help the involuntary spasm that fucks my cock into the back of her throat so hard her whole body heaves; but her throat closes on it, and it makes me come so fucking hard that I just see nothing but black, an' then the Fourth of July. I shoot round after round into her, and I feel it all the way to the back of my balls. She just swallows over and over, as hard as she can, struggling to handle the volume and my girth at once. 

She doesn't move until she's sure I'm finished, even lets me relax for a second to catch my breath, but the little scamp can't resist sucking and jerking it hard just before she's about to pop off. It tickles, and it's torture, and I'm trying to push her away and tell her to stop, but she's laughing about it, an' it does make me shoot off one more time, even though I don't even want to. Who am I kidding? I fuckin' loved it. Makes a man feel so fucking wanted.

I pull her up to lay beside me, and she wraps her arm and one leg over me. I go to kiss her, and she hesitates, says, "You want me to go rinse my mouth first or anything? I can if you want."

I don't say a thing. I just hold her tight where she is an' kiss her hard and deep. I want that submission, that spinning feeling when her mouth opens and so does yours and one of you is breathing for the both of you. I don't care she just gave me head. Most selfless fuckin' thing a girl can do for you? An' you're gonna send her away to brush her teeth? I never got that; these guys think kissing a girl who just gave them head is gonna make 'em gay or something? So fuckin' stupid. I couldn't care less. I know who I am. Girl goes down on me, especially so expertly, for so long, does such a good job? Makes me want to kiss her. I just don't believe in hang ups.

So I kiss her as long as I feel like, before I let her settle back down into my arms. On the way, she pulls the covers up over us, an' hugs me with her whole little body. I'm just laying there, and I realize I'm staring at the ceiling, at the cracked plaster. She's still quiet, like she's just waiting to listen, and stroking the smooth, cool skin where her sharp hipbone meets her waist, all of a sudden, I want to talk.

"You know? Until I met you, I did have pretty much a terrible fuckin' day today.", I tell her, her little face lookin' up to meet mine. 

She just kisses my jaw, reaches up an' plays with my hair.

"I know you did." , she says softly. "I have to tell you something."

"That sounds ominous.", I tease her, half smiling.

"I was there.", she says all low, like she's in a confessional. "Not at the accident. When you had to tell Mrs. Hudson."

"You work there?", I ask her. It comes out sounding a little confused. It's just that office struck me as a little snooty. Couldn't really imagine little Natalie making it outta there alive, not picked to cleaned off bones every day. Something about her just didn't strike me that way.

"No. I knew you wouldn't have noticed me. My family owns a bunch of professional buildings that we lease out. I was just there doing some maintenance.", she answers back sheepishly, big eyes cast down while she lays in my arms.

"Nah. I noticed. I never saw your face though. You were changing out some light bulbs in a hall fixture when I first came in. Your ass looks great in coveralls." Tilting her face up with my hand, I can see she's still worried about somethin', but she's smiling again.

"I saw you come in. I thought you looked stressed, like a man about to face a firing squad. When you left, you just looked", she pauses, one of her soft little hands sneaking up to cradle my jaw, her fingers unconsciously rubbing my ear gently, "I thought you looked pale, and hollow. Like someone whose insides had been scooped out and burned in front of them. Sort of numb, in the worst way. When I heard a couple women come out into the hall to talk about what happened, I knew why. I remembered that accident I saw when I was a kid. And I didn't have to tell the widow. I still had nightmares for years over it."

"So you followed me here?", I ask her. I'm legitimately curious. See, this is the difference between men and women. A guy did that, he's a stalker, an' the chick'd probably call the cops. Me though? If she followed me, wantin' to offer me some fuckin' comfort and solace after a shit fuckin' day? I'm kind of touched. An' I think she's pretty fuckin' brave.

"Not exactly. I live in town here. I saw your car parked out front when I was driving home. But I did go home and get changed thinking if you were still here, I wanted to talk to you. I didn't know what to say. My life is so easy compared to yours that I feel ashamed to even attempt to relate. I just wanted to try to make you feel better. You looked so... burdened." Sweet Little Thing exhales, the breath catching in her breath, like she is sure she's in trouble. "Are you mad at me?"

"No. Of course not." I pull both my arms around her tight, hold her waist and stroke her long, soft hair that's all laid out all over me, hold the back of her head in my hand, kiss her smooth forehead. "You're a sweet, sweet girl, Natalie. You know how often anyone cares how we feel after a day in this sewer of a world? Never. I'm the asshole tryin' to fill a quota an' write you a bullshit ticket. That's all anyone thinks, at best. At worst, they all think I'm just the fuckin' embodiment of the slogans they chant in the streets. An' you know? I'm a big fuckin' boy. I can handle it. But be mad because a pretty girl took it on herself to be kind, to the kind'a sonofabitch who brings out the exact opposite reaction in every fuckin' person he meets? Nah. More wonderin' if you can love someone you just met, 'cause I mean, I don't know, but I'm in serious like with you right now."

In less than a split second, she scoots up on top of me and kisses my mouth, before snuggling back down beside me, under my arm, looking up at me smiling.

"Don't worry; I won't hold you to that in the morning. But I made you feel better?", she asks.

It's infectious. I'm grinning like an idiot. I just can't help it with her. Morning though. Shit. That's a bit of a buzzkill. 

"Yeah. Y'did. A lot better. An' I'd talk to you about it, but then we'd undo all your good work. An' you know it all anyway. Y' know? I've been to thirteen scenes like that now? But I've never seen it happen in front of me. I'm sorry you had to see that, especially when you were just a little kid. Must'a been some disturbing shit."

"Yeah. Makes you see life as kind of frail, after that.", she says. She was so nice, gave me head, an' I went and made her sad. All that sitting there, being pissed off as fuck at the world that no one gets it earlier? Now I'm just truly sorry that little Natalie does. I gotta fix this.

"Know what? Mornin'? That shit just isn't going to happen. You wanna call in sick?", I ask her, rubbing my hand up and down her toned side, sliding my fingers under where her panties cross her hips.

"You'd do that?" She looks up at me smiling, bites her lower lip again. Fuck, I love when girls do that.

"Yeah. C'mon. You do it too. I'll take you into the city. Let's just pretend we're tourists for the day." I'm grinning. That unstoppable fuckin' grin. I actually want her to agree.

"Okay. Okay! I can't say no to the law, now, can I?!", she says, climbing up on me. She kisses me all excited, an' I feel like the fuckin' man. There's no worse feeling than notifying next of kin, being the one to ruin someone's life forever. But there's no better feeling than this, when you're the man, all caps, to some sweet girl, an' you know it.

"I'll take you to World of Coca-Cola. Fuckin' institution, right? An' what's that place a few blocks away? Campus, or Varsity, some shit like that? They, uh, they got these, just, awful burgers that are legendary, like, awesome, when you're hungover."

"Yeah, it sounds perfect. I'm in. Wanna go to the Georgia Aquarium after? Blue lives matter..." 

She's giggling, an' I'm so down for it. Won't even feel like my life. Everyone needs a rest from themselves sometimes, especially fuckin' me.

"Ah, hell yeah. If we're gonna do this, we gotta get it right. Besides, I bet it's quiet as a tomb on a Tuesday. I'm makin' out with you in front of that big wall of fish, an' this time you can't say no."

Sweet Little Thing's laughin' so hard she can hardly answer me, must know how weird as shit this is for me to be sayin'. Cute as a box of kittens, this one.

"I won't even try to say no to you, Shane." Words just lilt out on her soft laughter. What the fuck? I fuckin' know the word lilt? Better be careful or I'm gonna start answering those cultured Jeopardy categories. 

"Hey, um, Shane?", she says a few seconds later, sounding shy again.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for not making me feel dirty or silly. Or like it's a one night stand. Sometimes it's just nice to pretend."

"Let's not call it either of those things, okay, darlin'?", I ask her. But she's right about one thing. Life's a death sentence to serve out, for all of us, an' it is nice when you get a chance to forget that, even if it means pretending. "Let's just say this's a one night at a time stand, 'an that we've meant every fuckin' word, so far anyway."

She looks up at me, all the earnestness I can handle, and nods yes. She's in my eyes, an' in my head, an' I believe her. I pull her close. I want to hold her tight, touch all of her all at once. She's got her warm, perfect body wrapped around mine, and when she blinks, her eyes are staying closed longer every time.

This just feels so good, an' it hits me how tired I feel, like I could sleep for a thousand years. Lots of chicks can keep you up at night, but a girl that can make you sleep soundly? That's rare, an' worth somethin'. That's a special trick. Now there's only one thing stopping me from a long, dreamless sleep.

"Hey, Natalie?", I say , squeezing one of her slim arms that's strewn across me, making her big blue eyes open, "What's that sign on the wall say? I can't make it out."

"Oh. It says, 'Lose your head'."


	3. He Said "If it ain't broke"/She Said "Pushin' daisies"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of my fave ships from before ships were even ships... cops and strippers. A more classic match of archetypes than that, I cannot imagine ;)
> 
> When a dancer is assaulted at Top Brass, Shane Walsh is called to investigate and take statements. 
> 
> This story will be told through both the eyes of the female victim, and through Shane's eyes as the investigating officer in two totally separate 1st person accounts. The concept is how two people can be experiencing completely different realities even while both engaged in the same moment. Of course, smut ensues.
> 
> Story structure inspired by The Affair, one of the most cerebral and challenging shows on TV, IMHO. I hope y'all enjoy this concept, applied to this series exploring the underbelly of Shane's sexual history and career.
> 
> The corresponding soundtracks? They tell part of the story. It's the girl's strip list, as she remembers it, and as Shane hears it. It informs on the story a lot. No pressure, but for those of you who've told me you enjoy this addition to the storytelling, there's a whole story just in that!

_**Part One: Aster** _

_**She Said/Sirens as in Sea/Nereid** _

_**Soundtrack: Search YouTube, "Sea Sirens Striplist"** _

 

"I just can't believe this could happen in a place like this!", Joanie sobbed uncontrollably, "Top Brass is supposed to be different."

She shakes her bouncy bright red bobbed hair back and forth, pale green eyes looking down at her feet, and pulls the pink silk robe around her curvy figure more tightly. "I can't go through this again, not here. I don't know what else to do though. All I have's a grade twelve. And these."

With that, Joanie bounces her perfect, natural D-cups in her hands and I see the big fat tears fall from her eyes, and splatter on her red painted toe nails. She even cries pretty. Half the reason I don't believe in crying? I'm pretty sure I do it ugly.

"Learn to weld?", I ask back with a shrug, not really kidding. Not that she'll get my sense of humor, or that I'm only half kidding. It's probably what I'll do; well, something like that anyway, once I can't do this anymore. Something quiet. Something where I can be alone and don't have to pretend. Something where I wear layer upon layer, and never take any of them off.

Joanie smiles a feeble half smile back at me between sobs, as I help her trembling form down onto a chair, and pat her shoulder. My knee is killing me, but I can't afford not to work tonight. My mind drifts to the reason I do this; that concrete business in Charleston that I want so bad. I think sometimes about the way I'll feel if it sells out from under me before I have the money; downright doubled over like I was shot with a beanbag round in a riot. I need to make another twenty grand, then I quit this for good. I dance the shit out of that pole, just thinking about making those terrazzo counter tops. I already know the first one I'll do. Seaglass, abalone, some crushed down red Augusta brick, and lots of oyster shell. I'll call it Treasure Island.

"It's gonna be okay, Joanie. The cops are on their way. All of this will get cleared up, you'll see. Dewey's not that bright. They'll get him, and I happen to know this is a third strike. I'll testify myself if I have to. And for the most part, this is a nice place to work, not like The Timeout, that's for sure. Don't be scared.", I assure her softly, as she sobs into her hands. I just rub her shoulder helplessly, trying to comfort her. Joanie's eyes glance at me with a hint of accusation, as if to ask why I am not crying too, just because she is. I'd like to, to make her happy, but I can't.

Just then, I see the cop the county sent out, barge in through the employees only doors, like he's storming the beach in Normandy lifetimes ago, his brows furrowed, taking long, aggressive strides towards us, his dark eyes lit on fire. I know him, and so does Joanie, that's for sure. It's Shane Walsh, and he's one of Joanie's punters; always at her stage with a stack of tens. Once in a while watches Kristin with a stack of ones. But he's never looked in my direction, that I've seen. Must not be his type. Too bad, because he's mine. Just the sight of him, I can almost feel him on top of me, hear the sounds he'd make inside me, taste him. I catch myself chewing my lip as he approaches, and take a step back against the wall, averting my eyes.

"Joanie?", he barks out, before he reaches her, softly adding as his hand replaces mine on her shoulder, "You alright? Couldn't believe it was me who caught this fuckin' call. Douchebag's gonna pay. This's a nice place, an' you're a nice girl. This shit won't stand."

I stand there quietly, listening to him say all the things that you get told by the television real cops aren't supposed to; he's promising Joanie he'll catch the guy, even tells her he'll make sure he bumps the guy's head good a couple times as he throws him into the squad car. She's just giving him that beautiful, slack-jawed stare that she has mastered.

I want to laugh at this scene, but know I better not. Not to mention I'd like to just leave, but know I can't do that either. So I just stand there, shuffling my weight around uneasily, and looking at the scuffed up vinyl floor, memorizing all its scratches under my eight inch pearl studded plexiglass heels, tugging my huge desert camo hoodie down further, making sure it covers the tops of my fishnet stockings. I'm fine on stage, but right now, I just feel like I'm witnessing a tender moment between two people... without my pants on.

"Shane, I'm so glad they sent you. I shoulda known it would be you.", Joanie sniffles, her voice sings the words. "My hero."

"Ah, Joanie, jus' doin' my job.", Shane says back thickly. I can hear the obvious swell in his heart, all the pride. Maybe a little obvious swell somewhere else. Joanie does that to men. "So, uh, whadda'ya say, huh? You ready to tell me what happened, let me get on with punishing th' little prick to the fullest extent of the law?"

"Well, his name's Dewey Teach...", Joanie begins, but Shane cuts her off with a snort.

"I'll, uh, I'll fuckin' 'teach' him, scumwad asshat.", he's growling under his breath. I can't help but feel a smile wrestle its way out onto my face, as my hand shoots up to cover it, and I strain my face down at the floor as hard as I can, making sure it goes unnoticed, before I plunge my hands back into the front pocket of my hoodie, pulling it down further.

"... an' he's a trucker, comes in here pretty regular. He's not one of mine.", Joanie finishes, still sitting with Deputy Shane Walsh's arm around her, patting her shoulder. I can see the disbelief on his face at that statement, as though he's questioning visibly why any man on earth wouldn't be Joanie's regular.

It's a good question too. Joanie's been my best friend for about two years now, and she's about the nicest girl you could ever ask to meet. Never pays underhanded compliments, doesn't have an interest in competition, and supports me in everything I do. And she's good at this job too; has a smile on all the time, even if the definition of dancing has to be pretty loosely applied in her case. She has that look that means she can draw a crowd just slowly walking around her pole like she's in a chain gang. Joanie is absolutely gorgeous; not skinny, petite, toned all over, with dangerous curves, and the hugest natural breasts I've ever seen, skin impervious to the southern sun that stays the color of French vanilla ice cream, and then those big green eyes like live oak leaves, with her Georgia clay-red hair. Dresses up like Poison Ivy to dance every single Halloween. The girl's magic. Lots of girls love to hate her for it, but not me. I see the special in people, just most people have no fucking special to see. But Joanie? She's something. If I gotta lose out on Sexy Shane Walsh to anyone, I'm glad it's her.

"So can you tell me what went wrong today? His usual girl not working? Is that how he ended up at your stage? Call said you'd been roughed up pretty bad before security got him off you.", Shane asks, stepping in front of Joanie, and squatting down to get the right height to look right in her eyes. He's so focused in his concern for her, like he's looking for the scratches and dents left by the crime.

The two of them look pretty, even in this sickly greenish florescent lighting. Shane's a handsome man. I'd feel bad to say I think so, because he never notices me, but he's hot. So damned masculine, just how I like guys. Kind of a caveman, kind of a gentleman. And Joanie. Well, she looks like Marilyn Monroe wearing a red wig, because she didn't think she was quite sexy enough first off. They make giving a cop a statement look like a fucking marriage proposal.

Out front, Top Brass is pretty classy, as these places go; a bit of a throwback. Dark, all our stages are black laquer, and circled round in those old fashioned light bulbs. Booths are all red tufted leather, brass rails around the top that look just like our poles. Only two spinner stages here, and one is mine. Those have a mirror back besides. We all have speakers pointed our way, sound aimed in, so we all dance different shows. Place is nice usually, since, as the name implies, we cater to a certain variety. Lots of cops, firemen, military.

The back of any strip joint though? Always ruins a little of the magic. Ugly and ordinary, it looks like a stock room or break room anywhere; bad lighting, ugly forgotten coats hung by the back door, and a dirty microwave. Still, watching Shane crouched at Joanie's feet, gently taking her statement, while she tucks her red hair behind her alabaster ear, her big green eyes staring teary into his, and his big tanned hands holding hers as he comforts her; even I have to admit it's looking pretty beautiful and romantic back here, all of a sudden.

Finally, Joanie answers his question, a slight shake of her head, before the words slowly tumble from her full, glossy lips. "Oh, it wasn't me, Shane. No one laid a finger on me, but I'm just so upset. It was Aster who was attacked."

A blank look briefly washes over Deputy Walsh's rugged face, as his jaw falls slightly.

"Who th'hell is Aster?", he asks her, half his face pulled up like there's a hidden little drawstring inside. He makes this face like Aster is the most idiotic name he's ever heard, and like he must have heard Joanie wrong.

An Aster is a flower, or so I'm told. Aster's got a bunch of sisters; all got names like Rose, Daisy, and Violet. Aster's perpetual joke to slough off the questions about her name? Is to question why she didn't get named something like Lily.

"Um, Duputy?", I mumble, as confidently as I can, still feeling like the pantless elephant in the room, my voice cracking, "I'm Aster."

"Ah, hey, sorry about that.", Deputy Walsh apologizes back in my direction, slightly embarrassed, as he rises back to his feet, and finally relinquishes his grip on Joanie's hands. "I misunderstood, girls. I thought Joanie was th' one roughed up."

"No problem. Shook her up the most.", I answer back with a low wave of my hand, shaking my hair in front of my downturned face. "'Roughed up' might be a little bit of an overstatement, too. I'm fine. I hate Dewey though; should have seen this one comin'. Fool grabbed me and yanked me off my stage tonight. My knee's banged up a bit, but nothing that won't heal."

Deputy Walsh is standing in front of me now, one of those little pads of paper in his hand, taking notes. His heavy brow is furrowed, but I can see relief all over him; for all Joanie knows about men, she doesn't seem to realize how uncomfortable crying makes them. I get it; I haven't cried since I was fifteen years old, and a calf I was branding with my dad crushed my right foot, and even then, it was mostly because it made me so mad. Probably also why I am so proud I don't have two left feet. No one knows how hard earned that really is. But, point is, I get guys and their aversion to crying. Something about it makes me feel so uncomfortable, like my very soul is itchy. I don't want to put someone else through that on my account, not matter how sad I feel.

Deputy Walsh looks back up at me from his pen and paper, and I can't help but squirm. His stare is so intent, eyes dark and deep, and I can't tell if his brows are furrowed at me, or about the case. Relieved it wasn't Joanie who got hurt, sure. But a little disappointed to be stuck with me, a little less concerned with being a hero cop to me? Oh, yeah. I get that feeling too. Now, that stings more than my knee does. I know my tits aren't big, and sometimes I forget to smile, but why do I have to attract fucking trash like Dewey Teach and not a guy like Deputy Walsh? I'm a pretty girl, or I couldn't be doing this at all. Just born with a curse on me, I guess.

"I got th' name right from Joanie? Dewey Teach? That's th' suspect's name? Spelled like it's said?", he asks me, all business.

"Yeah.", I answer quietly, with a sniff; an involuntary tic when I'm nervous that I can never remember under those circumstances to change. Actually, Walsh has the same exact tic, though I don't know if it's nerves or annoyance for him. "He's a trucker with Halverson's. Happen to know he's been in the clink a couple times already. This is a third strike."

"That right?", Deputy Walsh asks me back, eyes narrowed but a little amusement to temper it. "You know him personally?"

"No. Nothing like that. Just you know how it is around here. Everyone sort of knows everyone. You got one friend in this whole county, no one's anonymous for long. He's a little too into me for comfort, if you know what I mean? Won't watch anyone else. Says things to me from time to time, from the pit. I dunno. I just never liked the cut of his jib. Asked around, found out he did a little time in Angola on a statch, little more later when he was paroled; that time, something about associating with known felons."

Sexy Shane's eyes snap back down, and he's back to writing in his little book. I take a split second to study his face, before I drop my eyes too, twisting on my ankles, trying not to wear one foot out before the other, and trying to keep my hoodie qualifying as a short dress and not a long shirt.

"That's good. Real good.", he says finally, not looking up yet, but a vague smile on his face. "I'll run all that through the system, make sure it checks. But, uh, meantime, gives me a lot t'go on." Finally making eye contact, he asks me, "Aster, you got a last name, huh?"

"Marshall. Aster Lee Marshall."

"You say he's said some things? Things that, uh, gave you pause, made you uncomfortable?", Deputy Walsh asks me after taking his time writing my name out in his book.

"Yeah. Nothing that really bears repeating. Just stuff that gave me the ick.", I say with a shrug. "Made me wonder what exactly it was that made him like watching me in particular; made me feel like maybe I didn't feel comfortable with his reasons, even if they were, well...", I say pausing to think, "...baseless? Unfounded?"

That piques his interest. He's not writing, but for the first time, making real eye contact with me. He cocks his head to the side and nods toward me, asking, "Like what d'you mean? Give me an example, if y'can recall one in specific, alright?"

"Oh, I um, I dunno." I'm stammering. I know the words, but they can't get out. I can talk dirty, but only my own dirty talk, and only with the mood set, shall we say?

Joanie rescues me, standing finally from the chair nearby, and coming to stand beside me, holding my arm. She takes over the interview.

"Aster's shy.", Joanie says plainly to Shane, with a huge exhale through her parted lips. Turning to me, she asks, "What was it he said to you that one day? The marshmallow thing?"

I nod yes, and before I even feel the need to start attempting to quote possibly the grossest words ever uttered to me, Joanie's already got it covered. This is why I love her.

"He said to Aster once something to the effect that he didn't know why he watched her. That he was too old to get it hard enough to shove it into someone as young and tight as her. He implied it was her age that attracted him. Gave her the creeps."

My cheeks are on fire and I can't look up, but Joanie is giggling, and I can tell if she doesn't give it to him, Deputy Walsh is going to ask her for the punch line. Still hugging on my arm, she leans forward in mock secrecy and half whispers amid her giggling, "He said it would be like trying to cram a marshmallow into the slot in a piggy bank!"

She dissolves into peals of laughter, probably because I am so embarrassed. And it's infectious. Even Deputy Dashing can't help but stifle a chuckle.

"That about right, Miss Marshall? Something to that effect?", he asks me, burying his face down to try to look focused on his notebook. I'm not quite annoyed with them both finding my misfortune so funny, but I do feel a little left out. Because right now I feel about like an ant under a magnifying glass, with a knee the size and approximate shape of a football.

"Yuck. Yeah. That was it. And just other little things to about that effect." I'm trying to fit in, joke along with them, but it comes out flat, like everything about me.

With one last easy laugh, Joanie lets my arm go. "I have to get home. I'm picking up a morning shift at the Awful House. Sorry, Aster, to leave you like this. Call you tomorrow, okay?"

"No problem. Have a good night? And try not to worry? Consider welding.", I say as she walks away.

Pausing on the way to her locker, Joanie takes a step back to stand just beside Shane, her hand coming to rest on the front of one of his broad shoulders. She whispers something I can't hear, but her tongue slips into his ear, and I see him smile, his eyes shut for a second, sucking in a sharp breath. And with that, she's gone. Joanie grabs her bag of clothes out of her locker and disappears to change before slipping out the back door.

The instant she's gone, Deputy Shane Walsh is just back in his notebook. I swear if he's writing the marshmallow thing down, to preserve for all posterity in a file somewhere, I'm not sure I like him as much as I thought I did.

I can't leave, I don't suppose, during an official police interview, so I just stand there, stuck, watching him write out his notes. I'm up to dance soon, and my legs and feet, especially the one I broke when I was a kid, are killing me. I guess I should have sat for this. Then I wouldn't be stuck with my back in a corner standing, and just shuffling around nervously, waiting for him to look at me.

Finally, he does, and asks me, "So, uh, Miss Marshall, you have visible injuries?"

Now what I want to say is how he's got to be kidding me. He's been standing here with me for damned near fifteen minutes, and you could pretty much watch the bruises blooming all down both my legs, and my knee getting uglier by the minute. I'm not even sure Man Pony is going to let me dance tonight, looking like this. We aren't a bunch of strung out losers. We don't dance looking brokedown; we aren't even allowed to.

What I do say, instead, is, "Um, yeah, he grabbed me by my ankle, and pulled me down, so if you look, both of my legs are all bruised up and my right knee where I landed is pretty bad.", standing nervously like I am facing inspection.

Deputy Walsh glances down, and agrees, "Yeah, no problem photographin' that for evidence. Can I get you to take your...", he halts, not looking but motioning with his finger at my stockings, "those things, uh, take 'em off, an' we'll get some pictures for the file, alright? I gotta head out to the car for a second, get th' camera. You need me to call for an ambulance or anything, get that knee looked at?"

"No, that's fine.", I answer, relieved for the excuse to sit down on a chair, already getting my shoes and stockings off. "It's no big deal. I have to get ready to go back on in a few anyway."

Standing in the doorway, cool night air rushing in, he stops and turns to me and says with a smile, "You're gonna dance on that? Man, you are one tough girl."

I don't know why, but sitting there, one shoe and one stocking thrown on the floor, and one fish-netted knee drawn up to my cheek so I can reach the buckles on the second shoe, I finally don't feel nervous.

"Whether I wanted to have to be or not.", I answer Shane back with a smile and a shrug.

With Deputy Sex on a Stick gone, things are quiet for a minute. Walking over to the mirrors, I don't have that much getting ready to do, other than covering the mess on my legs, and getting my nets and shoes back on. The music from Kristen's stage is bumping in this part of the room; girl never tires of Hot in Herre. I should probably take a page from her playbook. I overthink my costume, my look, my music; plan it all out like some kind of tableau. I try to tell a story. That's probably why no one watches me. They just don't get it. People have no patience. No vision. They don't want to think. I look past my makeup, past my hair, and into my own eyes, the color of a sad sky on a dark day. If that isn't the story of my life, I don't know what is. It's probably why I'm not Shane Walsh's type either.

Pulling me out of myself again, I hear the door open and slam closed. Suddenly, I'm back in my eyes, and looking out at the thin, tanned girl with seafoam colored hair in the mirror, and I see Deputy Walsh's reflection behind me, holding an old Nikon camera, looking anxious to get this over with.

I turn to face him. "Should we get this over with? Where should I stand?"

"Uh, right here's fine. I'm sorry to get, well, so up close an' personal, but I gotta get in here close enough to get the details.", he apologizes, crouching down what feels like inches from me. Of course, it's probably more like a couple feet. But I feel my body is humming just having him this close to me.

It only takes a few seconds, which I spend looking up at the dropped ceiling and florescent lights. The camera shutter snaps a half dozen times or so, and that's it.

"Hey, uh, Aster, you got an I.D. on you, by any chance?", he asks, setting the camera down.

"Yeah, in my bag. Just a sec. I'll grab it.", I answer, glad to retreat to my locker to rifle through my PVC Powderpuff Girls backpack. Glancing back over my shoulder, I see the look on Walsh's face. Maybe I should rethink a few of my fashion choices.

"Here.", I say, handing it to him.

One side of his mouth pulls back, brows furrowing. "This right? DOB April 29, 1982?"

"Uh, yeah? Why? The DMV give me something that looks fake?", I ask back trying not to look guilty. I'm not. But someone in uniform asks me something like that while I am standing in no pants and no shoes, and I begin to feel that way. My eyes do this thing against my will where they look up at the sky like they're going to pull in an adequate answer from up there somehow. It's not an eye roll. But oh, how the accusations have rolled on in because of it my entire life.

"No. No, nothing like that.", he says back, easing, and handing my card back. "It's nothin'. Uh, just, not what I expected." He exhales big and smiles easy. "Just thought you struck me more as a Gemini, is all. Hey, there's something I was going to ask you. Got thinkin' about it out at the car. You think there's any chance this Dewey Teach comes back here tonight, tries to finish what he started? You ever get that kind of impression off the guy? He make any threats, say anything when he assaulted you earlier?"

Glancing up at the clock, I answer, "You care if I get ready while I answer?"

"No, not at all."

"Well, I suppose it's possible he comes back tonight. Said he was done with a cross country run and home for a few. Planned to tie one on, he said. Sometimes he does come in both times on my split shifts.", I say curiously, rummaging through my dressing table drawer.

Right then, my boss comes back. Man Pony, we call him, don't ask me why. Maybe because we can't just call him Horse's Ass, like we'd all like to. I can sense the immediate distaste for him that Deputy Walsh feels too. Might be he knows things I don't.

"Aster, lil' twinkie. You think you're gonna dance on those things?", Man Pony twangs, managing to sound country and condescending at the same time. "I mean, I've given up waitin' on you to sprout a decent pair'a tits, but at least you got those stems. Not havin' you out there like this." He points to my bruised legs. And this is coming from a man with a thinning mullet, in a polyester suit and a bolo tie.

"Just give me a sec. I'm airbrushing them. You'll never even know it happened. Besides, I'm in fishnets for this routine anyway.", I answer back apologetically, trying to sound chipper, even though I feel more pissed off.

Just then, Walsh chimes in on my behalf, "Look, this isn't up to you tonight, man. This suspect? He's a third strike, an' I don't intend to miss an opportunity to be the one who strikes the dumb fuck out. So Aster's dancin', an' we're gonna see if he doesn't come back tonight. You can consider it a stakeout. We'll deputize her for the night if we have to. But this's happening. Not up to you, man."

My back was turned through that exchange, while I fixed up; feathering foundation up and down my legs and setting it with some Final Net. Helps you stick to the pole with fishnets on anyway. Unplugging my airbrush from the wall, I sneak a look from the corner of my eye over at Man Pony. He's all red in the face like he's about to explode; I don't think I've ever seen him so mad, and completely stymied all at once. No hiding my huge smile, I hide my face behind my hair and clean off my work station.

Anxious not to allow himself to be put in his place, and lashing out against someone who he can control, Greazy Sleazy storms over to me.

"Turn around, doll.", he orders, eyeing my legs, and turning me this way and that roughly, as if he knows what he's even looking for. Prick. "Looks fine. You girls are all such a bunch'a fuckin' drama queens. Get out there and make me some money."

With that, Man Pony stomps off, tail between his legs, not that he thinks I know it. I see it though, and thankfully, know I won't see him for the rest of my shift. Dumb fuck doesn't know how much money I've stolen from him over the years. I make myself money, and a plausible cover story. I make him chump change.

"Thank you, Deputy. For sticking up for me, I mean." I say softly, sitting down to pull my stockings back on and do my shoes up, looking up at Shane.

"Shane. Might as well get comfortable. We're gonna be spending a lot of time together tonight." Walsh smiles, putting his notebook away, finally. "So, is he a full time asshole, or was that just somethin' special for tonight?"

"Pretty much full time. Likes to pick up asshole overtime if he can. Journeyman asshole.", I answer with a shrug. "Likes to boss around a bunch of little girls, throw his weight around."

Shane laughs, nods at my shoes. "Well, when y'love what y'do, right? Y'could probably kill him with one of those heels."

"Probably.", I laugh. "Say he slipped, I tried to help, misstepped, and pierced his jugular? Story like that suffice?"

"Reasonable doubt for a justifiable homicide? Doublin' up on your defenses. Smart move.", he laughs. "Man, one of those things I'll never understand. All the rules we make up, turn to legislation, and never once has anyone suggested we make bein' an asshole a capital offense. We got speed limits, but a guy like that just gets to live."

But I've done it before; meted out justice. Been the fucking change I wanted to see in the world. Looking in Shane's warm, dark eyes, I want to confess it. Confess all my sins, then commit some more with him, actual fun ones. He's a little wild, but deep down, I know he's a good cop just joking around because he felt sorry for me. He wouldn't feel so sorry for me if he knew about the three bodies rotted down to nothing but stinking black coffin liquor in 2-4-D barrels, that I put in the ground to bake in the hot cracked sand when I was seventeen years old.

I try never to think about it; what I did. Not because I feel bad about killing them. I don't. I don't feel bad I lured them out there. Don't feel bad I seduced them. Don't feel bad I killed them, dismembered them, stuffed them neatly into those barrels and buried them myself. Don't feel bad I planned it. I just feel bad I had to; what they did to us. I do feel bad I wasn't big enough to do it when I was eleven. They never should have touched me on the school bus. And they certainly should have known enough to make me their last victim. There was no way in hell I was going to let it happen to Holly. That was my gift to her, my youngest sister, for her eleventh birthday, not that she'll ever know it. She's about to graduate from the university in Athens, just next spring. Holly's gonna be a social worker, not a stripper. Not a welder. Not a waitress at the Aiken Awful House. And she's engaged, picking out dresses these days, floating on air to say her virgin vows at the Salem Church of Christ out in Zip City where he's from. So I feel good about every man I've ever killed. The one good thing I ever did was saving Holly's life.

Shane's voice shatters my uncomfortable thought. "You almost ready? I gotta run the camera back out to th'car, and I'm callin' this in as a stakeout for the night. We'll get the guy. Meet you back at your stage? Just act natural, alright?", he says on his way to the door.

"Yeah, I'm about to head out there.", I answer back with a smile. "Tip me big. I'll give it all back, but it will make all the other punters shell out more, and give me an excuse for dancing to you more without pissing anyone off, or arousing suspicions, okay?"

"You got it.", he tosses the words back over his shoulder. There he goes, looking amused all over again.

When I hear the steel door click in the frame, I peel my hoodie off, and inspect myself under the glaring vanity lights above the mirror, exhaling hard. I don't really get jitters, stage fright, or anything like that. I just think about the money and my next fresh start; cash rules everything around me. I think I'm the only girl I've known who does this job stone sober routinely. I might finally take one of those pills I wouldn't touch back when I had my wisdom teeth out though; I don't know if my knee can do this without. I'm a control freak. I don't even drink. But I want to make this a good show because Shane's finally going to watch me, so I reach inside my dresser and chew one of the tabs. I need it fast, and don't want my stomach full of a glass of water either. I like my shows to be perfect.

I've never once taken more than Advil, to tell the truth. Joanie told me I was an idiot not to take these when I got them. She said when they hit you, they made your clit pulse and throb like the hottest man on the planet had been licking it for an hour.

I love the routine I'm dancing tonight. Sirens, I call it. It's one of my favorites, and I feel a little charged at the idea that I finally get to do it for Officer Hottie, like it's kind of a turn on. I always see him come in, always wish he'd come to my stage. I've even done a couple routines up with him in mind. This one isn't though. This one is all mine.

One last swipe of pale shell pink gloss over my lips, and I step through the double doors and feel the world of noise hit me like a wave; cold, fresh, terrifying. My heels catch with every step in the plush red carpeting, and I feel the burn of all the eyes on me, staring in a straight line to my stage. Brad, a fat, pimply guy in his mid-twenties, who still lives with his parents, nods at me. He's my stage hand, I guess. Plays the music, runs the lights and my bubble machine. When my feet hit the black laquered stairs, and I climb to the summit of my stage and wrap my leg round the warm brass pole, I feel like I'm floating, carried on the cheers from the crowd, free of my feet while I spin around six feet above the ground, and a world above the punters.

I don't dance how Joanie does. She makes a lot of eye contact, sort of engages with the men. I just can't do that. They're all so disgusting that if I looked at them, I'd lose my buzz; the arousal I can feel for myself that lets me dance sexy. I look at myself in the mirror, or just look away. But I do know how to dance, how to move my body so it suggests every single pleasurable thing a girl could do to you, in all sorts of ways you never even thought of. By the time I see Shane, sitting at a stool right in front of the stage, throwing twenties at me with a smirk, I'm four songs in, and about thirty revolutions upside down around the pole, so dizzy I can barely make him out. A down tempo trip hop beat guides every move as words trance my head.

_...I have only one thing to do and that's be the wave that I am and sink back into the ocean... sink back into the ocean... sink back into the ocean..._

Once I see Shane though, it all feels different. I want to see his eyes. I slow down and roll away from my pole, until I feel my feet find the floor again, and find my head upright again. When I strut slow around, and find his gaze, it's on me. I've never done it before, and I don't know if it is the pill I took, but I feel like I want him powerfully and urgently. He might be here watching me to try to catch a suspect, but I'm here to catch him. I walk across the stage slowly to where he sits staring up at me, and drop to my hands and knees in front of him. Looking in my eyes, Shane lets his hand graze slowly between my breasts and down my tight tummy, half a smirk on his lips as he stuffs another twenty under the waistband of my panties, letting his hand linger there a little too long.

Leaning forward I whisper, "How am I doing? You ready to deputize me yet, huh, Shane?"

"That depends. You lure the perp back yet, or no?", he teases, his breath in my hair. His hand slowly works through my hair and onto the back of my head. It makes me breathe harder. I'm getting wet just being close to him. "You're doin' great. This's smart. Good way t'give me updates. Crawl back to me in a bit an' give me a sit rep, alright?"

"You're the boss.", I whisper in Shane's ear. I don't have the same moxie as Joanie, to put my tongue in, but I let my lips graze his earlobe. He's so incredibly sexy. When I pull back from him, and slither backward, his face looks different than before, his eyes spaced out and lip curled.

_...how could it be that we defy this tragedy, find this lifeboat in the dark..._

I crawl back from him slow, never letting his eyes go, and let the back of my knee find my pole between my legs, and pull myself up slowly into a spin and get going again.

I'm so alone when I dance, and I like it, just swimming in that dead sea, where I feel comfortable. I make my routines as hard as I can, so all I can do is focus on my body and what it is doing, so I can't feel the eyes on me. I tune it all out, and imagine myself in whatever stage I set. Sometimes, I'm a burlesque dancer in a speakeasy, sometimes I'm Catwoman, sometimes little red riding hood, sometimes a disgraced farmer's daughter writhing in a barn loft with the star QB from high school. Sometimes, I'm a mermaid, dangerous and treacherous as the tides. Tonight I'm a Nereid, kind nymph of the sea, and Shane's going to turn the ship's wheel towards the rocks, and let his body dash against mine until we are both ruined, unless I guide him through the passage safely. His gaze sears into me, and it's so natural to be seductive. Every time I slow down, come upright for air, his dark smoldering eyes catch mine and cold chills tremble through me, force my lips to part. I'm not dancing alone tonight, and it's me who is scared of the undertow.

After a few more songs, I need to catch my breath, since Sexy Shane keeps on stealing it. I slide down the pole and drop to my knees and follow his trail of twenties. The smirk wiped off his rugged face, he's conspicuously holding up a hundred dollar bill for me, but I detour at the last minute, and roll around the stage like all I have is a tail, collecting all my tips first. He's jealous, and anxious for me to come to him, so I take my time. When I finally crawl to him, slow, dragging my knees just a little, his face is flushed and after his hand slides the bill inside my panties, Shane moves his hand behind my head again, and I feel his moist lips graze my cheek as he pulls me close to whisper to me.

"He here yet? Dewey?", he asks low and quiet, but urgent.

One of my hands leaves the cool laquered stage floor, and finds his strong, warm neck, as I nuzzle my face close to his opposite ear to whisper back, "No, not yet. Show's almost over."

His teeth grit. I know he's hard. "Good.", Shane answers me back, decisively. "You do private shows?"

"For you?", I ask, pulling back to look in his eyes, one hand resting on his shoulder, "There's a first time for everything, right?"

"But you don't do them?", he says, sounding concerned, brows suddenly furrowed. "I don't want t'make you uncomfortable."

"You don't", I gently reassure him in his ear, sneaking a slow kiss onto his neck past the eyes of the punters. "Shane?", I moan his name softly, "I think I'd be uncomfortable if we didn't."

I can actually feel his neck get hot under my hand, his heart beat faster. "Ah, fuck, sweetheart.", he exhales in my ear, "You mean that how it sounds? How uncomfortable, girl?"

A blush stings my face, stings me like a yellowjacket somewhere else too, and I want him even more. I like being this close to him, feeling the heat his body gives off, the way his flesh smells like the cool dark ground, and green like the severed roots of trees. I want to breathe him in, suck him in, take him down, lay with him.

"Mmm, Shane? I gotta finish my set. I gotta pay the bills, you know?", I say pulling back, but it is to no avail. Shane holds both my wrists tight, and leans into my ear again, his teeth on my flesh.

"C'mon, baby. I just gave you a C-note. Throw me a bone here. How uncomfortable?", he asks again, kissing my cheek, before he catches my eye, trying to look dead serious.

"I think it's you who wants to throw me a great big bone.", I tease back in his ear. "Okay. Uncomfortable like, I'd lay awake thinking about sitting in your lap until morning."

"Oh, so you like lap sitting, huh?", he asks me back, his breath hot on my skin, "How about you start that private show right now, an' I bounce you in my lap until morning for real, make sure you sleep good after? Always did want a mermaid with a thigh gap.", he adds with a dark grin.

"Wait for my show to finish.", I whisper reluctantly before slithering away. "You're gonna get me in trouble."

I can see his hand disappear in the dark behind the stage. He's not stroking. He's not like that. But his hand is on his hard cock, I know it, probably gripping it tight through his pants, without even thinking about it. I'm jealous now. I want to be the one doing that to him.

I end this routine with Down in Mexico by The Coasters. Not just because I love to drag my toes and slow step out the intro, not just because I love the rough, hot streets of Mexicali and practically grew up there, and not just because it's about as far from Hot in Herre as you can get with a strip song. The best part is, the chick in the song dances with caster nets. It's always a killer finale that makes me as much as the rest of the set in about thirty seconds. A mermaid? Whirling around a pole, throwing nets, catching men, reeling in her prey? They eat it up. No one sees the real caster nets coming. I know who gets the big blow off tonight.

Dizzy, hands and legs shaking on the inside, my lungs burn with the exertion of the show, but my eyes pick my marks in the haze of the crowd, and slowing down, my heels hit the floor. Unwinding the nets that hang from the strings of my panties, I take to the pole with one hand, and cast with the other. The final net covers Shane, and I don't let go, sliding off my pole, and reeling gently with both hands as I walk towards him. He's smiling, shaking his head. I can read his mind. At the last possible moment, I release him, keeping the net behind his back, and holding on tight, use it to pull myself right off the stage and into his lap, legs wrapped around him. Tilting my body out to spin his stool outwards, I flip my legs out over both our heads and sommersault backward off the stool, and start to walk, pulling him with me in the twisted net.

Normally, after a few steps, I'd let the guy go, and exit to massive applause. These are the lengths I go to, in the absence of big implants, to make that money. But not tonight; tonight, I drag Shane into a private room, still in the net, without a word, and without even looking back at him. I don't need to. I know he wants to come...

Our private rooms are nice, though I have never once danced in one. It's a big money maker, but just not my thing. I'm not that kind of girl; I hate people too much. This one has a small spinner stage, set right in front of a small red tufted leather booth, surrounded by mirrors. It's dimly lit with an old chandelier. I feel like these rooms are almost like a haunted house, full of the hazy vapors of so many people's abandoned virtue. I've never liked vacuuming them alone at night, but I like being in here alone with Shane.

When I turn to face him, he asks, "So, can I touch you? What's th' rules about this, I mean on your end??"

Sighing, I hand his hundred, and all his twenties back; I kept count, kept them separate. "Here. Now I'm just a girl, and you are just a man, behind a closed door. No rules for either of us."

"Good.", Shane's voice comes out gruff and tight, as his strong hands grab my ass and hips, and pull me against him. "Then feel this. Feel what you fuckin' did to me. Little girl with green fuckin' hair. Shit. I figured you did a good show, but hell. I wish I'd have started watchin' you sooner."

I can't help it. I moan. Pretty hard too. But he's strong, and pulling me onto him hard, and even though it's in his pants, I can feel his big dick between my legs, and he's rubbing my whole little body aggressively against it. "Aww, me too, Shane.", I breathe, reaching my hands up onto his neck and into his hair. He's doing all the work. I don't even have to grind, just try to keep my feet on the floor. "Why didn't you? I thought you didn't like me. You never even looked at me."

His lips collide with mine, and his tongue fills my mouth. I feel my body just melt against him, finally feeling everything; his muscular uniformed chest against my bare skin, his strong, square fingertips digging into my ass, his absolutely huge, rock hard cock sliding against my panties. His mouth tastes like the piece of winterfresh gum he's been chewing since he got here, and his tongue is thick and velvety in my mouth. I've never wanted a man physically the way I do him, and I just want to know how he resisted me for so long; what was wrong with me.

"Well, darlin', ", he says slowly, his voice laced with regret, after his lips break from mine, "Should'a carded you sooner. I, uh, I looked at you, alright. Looked just long enough to decide I thought you were barely legal, an' I shouldn't be lookin'. The sight of you makes my dick hard. Didn't seem right. Now that I know it is, I could come just lookin' at you."

I can't help but smile. What a decent guy. I know all the guys that come in here see me that way; jailbait. I can't help that I haven't really changed since junior high, and I'm not one to turn down any of the few advantages I've had in life, but just the same, I know why all the men who watch me do it, and it makes me sick in the deepest personal way. I hate what they like about me, even though they are dead wrong.

"You don't like younger women?", I ask him, letting my hands fall down his arms, admiring him.

"You're still younger. I've been kickin' around since th' seventies.", he answers, lip twitching with a half smile. "If you were as young as you look? Not even my type when I was twelve. Even just doin' the math, that I could? That you've been here for a year or so, so maybe you started at twenty one? Nah. I work four twelves straight. I don't relish spending days off between th' Pacsun an' Forever fuckin' 21."

"What? You don't like Beiber remixes played in a loop at 110 decibels?", I joke sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.

Shane laughs. "No. I like you though."

"You like Joanie better.", I say, one part kidding, one part accusation.

He just pulls me close, kisses my neck softly, his tongue on my skin giving me chills. "Not anymore, I don't. Wouldn't mind both of you at once though. You're such opposites."

"Joanie's hot, but I'm not, you know, bi. Besides, I don't want to share you.", I answer breathlessly. He grabs my hand and wrestles it down his pants until my finger tips find his silky hard cock. "Oh, Shane... I want this and your mouth at the same time, any time I feel like."

I probably need to cool things down, for the moment anyway. These rooms have security cams, and I know Man Pony likes to lock his door and watch the feed. A skeeved shudder shakes my spine. The idea of Man Pony getting off on this is enough to turn me off sex until I'm as dry as the dust I'll eventually become. So gross.

"Shane?", I say softly, pulling my hand out of his pants, and pushing him back from kissing me, "I gotta cover up the camera, okay?"

He lets me go a bit begrudgingly, and I struggle to pull the stage steps over the plush carpet to where the camera by the exit sign is located, so I can climb up and wrap my net around and around it. When I climb back down, Shane is seated in the booth, looking comfortable, legs sitting far apart. Man, I just want to crawl between them and bury my face there and see if he tastes how he smells.

"Could you dance for me some more?", he asks me with a grin, "Same songs. I want to watch you without sittin' in the middle of a fuckin' cocktail sausage party for once."

"Yeah, of course." I'm surprised. I did not have him pegged as the kind of guy who likes to have to wait for it. On the other hand, I do think he likes power dynamics. How could he not, in his line of work? I doubt he knows how to let that go, even when he tries. He's the kind of man who either wants to be in complete charge, or wants you to take it from him forcefully; let him freefall through egalitarian irresponsibility, giving all control over to a little girl he could overpower, but doesn't want to.

"Hey, Brad?", I say into a mic in the wall, struggling to depress the intercom button with my long nails, "Could you cue up the Sirens tracks for in here? Room three. Just put it on repeat and go home for the night. I'll clock you out when I go." A staticky disembodied voice replies, "Roger that. Thanks Aster."

The music starts as I step back up onto the small stage. It's not big enough for my usual routine, but it doesn't matter. I spin around slow. This time, I'm not showing off my moves. I'm showing off my body.

"Yeah. Like that.", Shane's voice is low and husky. "Slow. An' look at me."

I do what he says. "Like this?"

"Yeah." His hand wanders onto one of his legs. His cock is visible even from here, straining against his uniform. His long fingers grasp and squeeze the tip, and his handsome face twitches. "Now, uh, hold the pole further up your thighs, okay? An' let me see your cooch slide down right up against the pole, alright? Let me see it slide an' bounce down the brass."

Once I've obeyed him, and come to rest on the floor, legs spread, pole between them, he asks me another question.

"That feel good, baby? Looks like it would feel good."

I can't lie to him. I do want to grind on the hard metal pole, just a little. I don't need to fake. Holding it with my hands, I press my panties up against it hard, and roll my hips up and down. Once I start, I can't stop; I don't know if it's Shane or the pill I took, but I'm so turned on that I can't control it, and I'm really trying to come. Shane unzips, and I'm wet wanting to watch him stroke it. He does, but it's really slow and loose and lazy. He's not trying to come, just trying to make me want to make him.

"Baby?", he says, "You're gonna make yourself come like that. Stop it. That's my job."

Staring defiantly in his eyes from my stage, I refuse without a word. I know what he wants. He wants to make me stop.

"I'll spank you.", Shane threatens, standing up, still stroking his beautiful cock.

"Good." I moan softly. "I like spankings."

In a flash, he pulls me from my stage, and drags me down to straddle his lap in the booth, and I feel his hand strike my ass, startling me with the loud clap of skin on skin. It's like being electrocuted; I'm shocked. But somehow I feel the impact and vibration of the slap deep inside my body, and I'm even more desperate for his dick. My clit aches so bad it stings.

"If you're gonna do that, Shaney baby, you better spank me hard enough I can feel it on the inside." It's probably the naughtiest thing I've ever said in my whole entire life. I mean it though. I want him to do it again, and I want him to do it harder.

"Ah, you fuckin' little back-talkin' cock tease. Thin ice, girl. An' strike two.", his gravely voice moans, before his teeth sink into the sinews of my neck, just below my ear, like an animal makes a bitch submit. I do too. Without even thinking, my head tilts back and presents my jugular, and before I can gasp in a breath, he unleashes a lashing of hard spanks. I can feel it, his unforgiving palm on my ass, his fingers reaching between my spread legs, slapping my clit.

When his jaws release me, I'm moaning, waiting to put my head down, lick his wounds, and give myself to him. I lean into him, the warmth of his body drawing me, and kiss his strong neck, letting my lips feel his stubbly skin, my tongue lick the salt from his skin while I listen to him breathe, feel his pulse. I ease my hips closer to his lap to see if he'll let me sit there yet, feel his big strong cock press against my swollen throbbing pussy. I want his big blocky dick to rub on my panties until the thick tip finds the small wet hollow of my hot body, and I want him to try to put it in before he even has me undressed.

"You want a ride on it now, is that right, darlin'? You're a sucker for punishment, huh?" Shane's voice sounds sad, and sliding further into his lap, I look in his deep eyes, trying to understand why; what I did. I guess he's right though, because my body is hurting for his cock, but I stop just shy of sitting right on it like I want to, because of his sad dark eyes. I doubt he ever cries either. Approaching his lips slowly, he comes to me now, raising his head. Holding his head in my hands, I taste his hot mouth slow, my tongue asking his permission to slip past his lips, past his teeth, onto his tongue, begging for his approval to draw one of his breaths into my body. He's so gentle. He gives me everything I want.

My lips are moist with his when I finally pull back. "No. Not for punishment.", I shake my head, my hair falling over my shoulders and into his face. "Just a really big sucker for you."

He's staring up at me, and all I see is a man who wants to fuck and get off. None of that black melancholy anymore.

"You ready t' submit to me, or are you stuck on bein' bad, huh?", Shane groans, taking one of my hands in his, and wrapping it around his thick erection, showing me how to stroke him with his fist over mine.

"I dunno.", I purr back, kissing his waiting lips. "Touching you like this sort of makes me feel like still being bad."

"Why's that?", he asks. His hand finally trusts mine to touch him right, and now both his hands are all over me. I feel his firm grip grab my ass hard, and both his hands rise up my flat stomach, his long fingers sneak up my breasts until he grabs them firmly, doesn't let go, stroking my soft skin with his finger tips.

"Don't you like bad girls?" Lips pressed to his neck, my grip on his dick tight, I half expect him to spank me again.

His handsome face is awash in this amused expression. "You're not a bad girl. You're just bein' bad. I want you to tell me why's all."

"Mmm, well, you're a man, like a real man, you know? And I'm in your lap, and you have the single biggest cock I've ever seen, and I'm stroking it while you touch me, so...", I flirt, trailing off shyly. "Am I being too bad, Shane?'

"No. I love it when good girls act bad." He kisses my mouth again, and I bite his lower lip gently. "Can I pull these shells off?", he finally asks, his hands still on my breasts, toying with the edges of my pasties.

I just shake my head no. "Not yet." In all honesty, I'd love to feel him tweaking my nipples, love to see him suck them. But we're playing a different game now.

"These're real shells, aren't they?", he asks me suddenly.

"Yeah. Lined in pale pink kid leather. I had them made special.", I shrug with a smile. No one ever notices the details. I love that he just did.

"Such a pretty girl in such an ugly place. You're pure class y'know." He says it like we aren't playing a game at all anymore.

Laughing, I kiss him impulsively. "I dunno, Shane. I'm a stripper beating off a cop after a failed sting to catch some loser trucker who roughed me up today..."

"Yeah, well, I'm a thirty somethin' cop, wants a stripper to jerk him off while he's on the clock. You wanna stop?", he asks with a wry grin.

"No.", I answer softly, shaking my head. "What I want is you. You know...", I lower my voice and lean closer to his ear, "You have the nicest cock I've ever seen, and it feels so good in my hand. It's so big it's a little bit scary though."

"You scared it's gonna hurt?", he asks, his hand moving onto my pussy, stroking it so gently through my panties that I can barely feel it, just feel that I want more.

"Beyond scared straight.", I joke before adding, "Maybe a little."

"I'll be gentle. I can do it so it won't hurt." He's still just barely touching me with the tips of his fingers, and his other hand strokes a strand of hair that has fallen over my shoulder and down my chest. "You ought'a stop jerkin' me though. I'm about t'come if you don't."

I stop right away. "Sorry.", I giggle.

"Your knee.", Shane says quietly. "It must be killin' you. Here.", he says lifting me to lay on my back on the edge of the tiny stage in front of the booth, "You don't need to be kneelin' on it all night for me."

Laying on the stage, I can see us in the mirrored ceiling, my legs drawn back, knees apart. I must be high from that painkiller. I feel like I'm floating, half paralyzed. I feel like a disembodied soul trapped helpless outside its body, looking for a way back in. Because as I lay here, I see him leaning toward me, his head moving between my legs. Maybe it's just him; wanting him so bad like this, that I'd let him do anything, I don't know, but I've never once let a man do that to me, let alone even get close. But tonight, I just lay still, watching him come closer and closer, my heart pounding like a trammeled animal.

The strong grip of his hands are warm on my thighs as he pushes my legs further back, and further apart, before moving one onto my ankle. Shane kisses my knee softly, and asks, "This must'a hurt like hell. You must'a been scared, little thing like you."

"It's no big deal.", I say flatly. "Besides, you're here now.", I add with a shrug and smile. "It's a kiss magnet, so that's kind of nice."

Shane smiles. I almost forgot his pants are still hanging open, and he's hard. He doesn't let go of my ankle, but the hand that was prying one thigh down glides toward my center until his finger tips are pressed firmly on my panties, rubbing me in circles.

"That feel good?", he asks.

As if he doesn't know, the way my back is arching, the way my panties are slick and soaked through, my pussy swollen shut with want for him. "Uh huh.", I nod.

Shane stands and leans over me, and I don't miss the chance to put my hands on his huge hot cock again and pump its length.

"Shane...", I moan stroking him with both hands, "I can't even close my hand around it. I have to use both."

He leans all the way over me and kisses my mouth before he asks, "Scary?"

"Yeah. I don't care. I want it."

"You're not ready yet.", Shane says, pulling my panties down, and me halfway off the edge of the stage, so he can sit in the booth, his head between my thighs.

I'm trying to be cool, but now I am scared, panicking, my heart pounding, and I feel like I want to find my feet and run away. I can't do this. I push his big heavy head away, pulling his thick curls a little as he resists my attempt to move his head back.

"Y'don't like this?", he asks incredulously. "All chicks love this."

I'm filled with horror, because to my own amazement, I feel like I might cry. "Um. No, I um, I... I don't know.", I struggle quietly for words. "I've never, you know, done this before."

Shane smiles faintly. "Do what? Why? Such a shame. You're so pretty down here."

"No. I don't know. I don't think so." Normally, I would hate this, and get up, call him a piece of shit and run away, and feel numb, like some kind of busted emotional cripple. But Shane is still sitting here between my legs, looking sincere, all dressed in uniform, with that glorious cock of his still out, and still hard as iron.

"Why would you say that?", he asks, leaning forward. I try to look away, but I see him in the mirror above me. I watch it happen as I feel the tickle of his thick dark hair inside my thighs, his warm breath on my clit just before his moist lips part and kiss me gently there, feel his tongue graze it just a little before he pulls back. Out of my control, my body loves how it feels. "Was that so bad?"

"No. It feels really nice, but I just feel shy. I'm worried you're just doing it to be nice. I want to make you feel good.", I argue, despite the hungry ache in my body where his mouth just was.

"Let me let you in on a little secret, huh, girl?", he drawls softly, getting up and laying his body over mine and kissing my ear. "I get off on gettin' girls off. 'Specially fucking exquisite little pieces of ass like you. Now, for one thing, first chick I ever had a wet dream about was The Little Mermaid. So this whole thing you got goin' on tonight?", he eyes me up and down, "It's doin' it for me."

Shane kisses down my body, grabs my little tits on the way down. "An' down here? If this's what's stoppin' you? You are such a fuckin' silly girl.", he kisses me again, slow and gentle, pushing his face against me, and I feel my hands that had been in his hair trying to push him away, pulling him down and guiding his mouth. "Aster. That's a flower, right?", he asks, coming up for a breath. "What good's a flower without petals? You're so fuckin' pretty, all pink, little lace ruffles, an' you taste like warm maple syrup. So tight I don't know if I can do it without hurtin' you, no matter how hard I try. All this makes me want is to feel my dick in you."

"Then get up here and let me kiss you so I can feel your cock." I'm getting that itty bitty bedroom voice. I can't help it. I want him so bad. "I want to see how hard you are."

"T' make sure I ain't lyin' to you?", Shane teases me, wry grin and a brow raised.

"Your mouth tastes so good.", I pant breathlessly, kissing him, both of my little hands wrapped around his cock again. He's hard, alright, and I can feel his pulse in his dick. He's swollen to the point that his tip is as hard as his shaft, and his shaft is ballooned around the middle. Unless I'm deeper than my belly button, there's no way I'll get him all in.

"I taste good 'cause you do.", he breathes into my ear, sucking it into his mouth, biting it. "So am I hard enough to suit you, or do you plan to keep up the third degree all night, just ball bustin'?"

"It's so hard. Does it feel good?", I tease him back, stroking him, occasionally pulling his cock down so I can grind up against it.

"Yeah, sorta.", Shane answers in my ear, wincing. "Sorta feels uncomfortable unless I'm tryin' t'come with it. I dunno, baby. You like bein' teased mercilessly?"

"I must, I guess, if that's what you're doing."

"Yeah, well, you won't.", his words muffled against my neck as he kisses me deep and hard. "You'll beg for my cock."

Wrapping my legs around his chiseled hips, I reach down and start undoing his shirt. "Then stop talking about it and do it, Shane.", I moan, sucking a kiss from his lower lip. "Put it in me. I want you to."

"No.", he answers gruffly, forcing all four of his fingers in my mouth to wet them, and grabs between my legs roughly before his middle finger tries to pry inside, slow and gentle.

"Oh Shane...", I exhale, touching his stubby cheek looking up at the dark fuzzy image of us floating above me. "Why not? Please? I mean it, I don't care. I'll beg, okay? Just give it to me."

"'Cause you ain't anywhere near ready yet.", Shane growls in my ear, finger fucking me in and out, real slow. It feels so good my hips roll with him. "I don't want to hurt you. I want you t'come once first. I wanna make you. Then you can get on it."

He has his technique down. Everything you ever wish a guy would do with his hand, he's doing. I don't even know if it's the pressure of his knuckles, or if his opposite thumb is on the button, but he's working it at the same time he bangs me and pulses the finger inside me. I can already feel the start of the tickles and flutters, and my eyes close, too heavy to stay open. My lips part and moan his name over and over, unable to stay quiet.

In the warm darkness of my own body, somehow, he seamlessly moves down me, and now I can feel the pressure of his big hands gripping the insides of both my thighs, pushing them open as far as they will go, and his warm mouth close over me. I can't feel shy because he's got me wanting him too bad, and the sensation of his rough face inside my smooth thighs turns me on more. Such a fucking man.

I don't know if what he's doing is how it's done, but if it isn't, it should be. I think his teeth are on my clit, but he's so gentle I can't tell, just before he sucks a breath in against me, and rubs that strong, velvety tongue of his up and down me hard, never losing the seal of his lips. His mouth is the same temperature as my body, just as hot, just as wet. It feels like the best sex dream I ever had, like it is just happening to me, like my body is doing it all on its own, just throbbing excrutiatingly towards an explosive orgasm. Except for the unbelievably sexy pressure of his heavy head, and stubbly face, the honest, earthy smell of his skin, the sounds of his arousal and heaving breaths. That makes this better.

I don't talk to him much, because he doesn't talk back. That's okay. I like being quiet. I feel lost, floating in space, warm with him. I can't stop the moans though. It would be impossible. He never takes his mouth off me, never loses the gentle tug of the suction from the seal of his lips around mine, licks hard and rhythmic right where I was aching for him to do it, one of his fingers somehow finding a way to slide inside me, as my walls pull tighter and tighter. When I come, it surprises me, like a balloon I knew was going to explode, but it's still a shock, the violence of it.

My whole body contracts, and I seek his head with my hands, trying to push his head away, because it's too intense. I fight it because I think I'd get sucked under the surface if I didn't. The shockwaves of intense cold pleasure shake through my entire pelvic floor, and ricochet back up to my belly button, and my face feels on fire. I know I'm screaming, but I can't hear it over the buzz in my head. When I feel like I can't possibly take any more, I just keep coming, and Shane pulls me off the stage and into his lap in the booth, holding me, kissing my neck. He doesn't push his cock into me, he just sits me on it, and rocks me back and forth slow, stroking my hair.

"Ah, Shane.", I struggle to breathe, find even my little bedroom voice. "Oh. Fuck. Shane, what was that?", I ask him, in love with him, in love with his body, in love with his heart; so decent, so gentle, never looked at me before, just did that to me, didn't hurt me, didn't use me. I'm still coming in slow tremors, his competent hands guiding my whole body, sliding and grinding me on his cock without putting it in me. I lick his neck, slow and hard, breathing in his smell, and pushing his open shirt from his shoulders. "I can't stop coming."

Shane's face is starting to contort in those tiny expressions of prolonged arousal as he replies low, looking up into my eyes, "I know baby. It's 'cause you're not done yet. I only made you come here.", he says, putting a big square finger tip on my tiny pearl. "Now I gotta make you come from the inside."

Impulsively, I lean down over him and kiss his mouth, holding the brass rail behind his head. I don't do this; kiss like I'm in love. Mouth open, tongue slow and seeking his, trying to feel his heart beating with my own bare chest, I feel his huge cock twitching against me. All I can do is helplessly moan softly in his mouth.

As hard as it is to stop, because I really do want to stay in his lap until he can't deny himself any longer, and he finally pushes himself into me, I slide back in his lap, kissing down his chest, and drop to my knees on the floor. As I kneel undressing him the rest of the way, I finally get to suck on him. The massive tip of his cock is almost squared off like his finger tips are, and I take him in my hand and rub it around on my lips like it's a lipgloss I'm trying to take the edges off of. Shane's the one moaning now.

"Suck it.", he implores in a tight, urgent voice.

"No." I say defiantly, in a whisper, right before I suck it all into my mouth.

It doesn't really fit, and my jaw aches instantly, the inner corners of my lips tingle from stretching too far. I don't care. I'm already aching bad for him again, and I just want his cock in me, no matter where he wants it. I kneel tall over his lap and pound my head up and down his thick shaft, sucking until I've swallowed him. Almost immediately, I feel his hand on my head, in my hair, and panic chokes me like a mouth of dry corn husks. But he doesn't force me down. He pulls my head gently back up, and tilts my chin up to look at his face.

"Get back up in my lap, huh, darlin'?", Shane says slow and soft.

It feels like I'm home. His skin on mine is warm, and he pulls me right up against him, and kisses me, his hands working up and down my body.

"Why'd you want me to stop?", I ask, grazing his shoulder with a kiss, feeling my own nervous smile.

"I didn't want to come in your mouth.", Shane responds simply, before whispering in my ear, "Because I want to come inside'a you. That okay?"

I feel my heart race. I don't know why, but there isn't a nicer thing a man can say to you, and a soft gravely drawl doesn't exactly hurt either. I can't find words to answer, so I just look in his warm brown eyes and nod yes.

What comes next does hurt, but just a little. Shane can't help it he's so big.

"Damn it, girl. Good thing you're this wet.", he says, his big fist wrapped around his cock, as he guides it into me gently. When I take a sharp breath, he stops and asks, "This okay?"

"Uh huh, yeah.", I moan, "It feels really good."

"Okay, well, that's the tip.", he laughs. "Just let me help you, do the work at first, alright? Don't hurt yourself."

"You're not my first.", I joke.

"Nah. But you wish I was." His voice casts a diffuse shadow. I think he sounds sad, but then, I project. I do wish it. This is perfect. I'd tell him that too, but he knows. Me saying it would make us both sad, when we are both just trying so hard to feel good.

"Shane?", I whisper, letting my body submit to his touch, letting him hold me down, move me with him when he sees fit, as he eases his cock further and further inside me.

"Yeah? You okay? I'm not hurtin' you?", he asks into the hollow of my neck, and lets go of my hips to wrap his arms around me so he can hold me tight, slow fucking, just rocking me in his lap like he said he would.

"Aw my word...", I moan, "No. Not at all. Not even a little. It's just... do you want me to do anything?"

"Baby, y'er doin' it. Just stay on it like that. Just relax. Let me have you.", Shane groans, "Look at me. An' tell me if it feels good." His rough drawl glides down my neck soft and smooth, as his hips roll me in his lap deep and slow.

Shane. If only he were my sweet Shane, if he knew how to be mine, if I knew how to be his. He's so sad and alone; 'look at me, tell me I'm good'. I'd know those words too, if it wasn't that I don't want anyone to look, because I know I'm no good, not anymore, anyway. I want to be with him, lure his sorrow away, kill it, dismember it, bury it in sealed barrels to rot along with mine. Something's broken in him too; something discarded and thrown off that no one sees. Not like me though. He doesn't want to be numb, I don't think. He's inside me trying to feel. I want to love him, because if I can't love him--those pleading dark eyes, looking in mine for something they can't seem to find while he tries to love me and please me with his body--well, if I can't love him, I died a long time ago with my eyes and thighs squeezed shut on the floor of a Thomas bus. Then when consciousness found me with my bruised cheek against cold metal, the smell of the vulcanized rubber runner down the center aisle mingled with blood and piss and come, and nothing but the view of the unupholstered plywood seat bottom, I never really woke up. Then I died into a nightmare, to walk dead and haunt this earth. I don't do this; have sex. Not ever. Not for years anyway. I don't like thinking.

"Hey?", Shane's voice shatters my thought and I'm back in my tingling body again, in his strong arms, in his lap, with his cock deep inside me. My breath slows. This feels so good. I remember what he asked for, something so small.

"Sorry.", I whisper, easing back to look at him and smile. "This feels amazing." Leaning towards his ear, I slip my hand between us, running it down his muscular body, until it finds a tangle of his coarse dark hair, and his cock completely buried inside me. "I can't believe you're all the way in.", I moan, surprised, in his ear. "It's so fucking good slow and gentle like this, but it feels so good that it's hard not to try to ride it a little."

"You wanna ride me?" Shane kisses my ear and thrusts a bit faster. "Here. Lean your hips forward like this.", he says, showing me with his hands. "Now, grind a little. Don't do it like a show, some lap dance bullshit. Do it like you mean it, like it's to come, alright?"

His hands close around my hips, and show me how, pushing me down, grinding my achy little pearl against his pubic bone, giving me traction in his thick hair, while he slowly rolls his thick cock inside me. My whole body feels full of him, and I'm glad he's holding me so tight, because otherwise it feels like I'd float away.

"Oh Shane...", I breathe hard, slumped over his shoulder, "This's so amazing. I love this."

"Best you ever had?", he asks me, voice thick. He knows he is.

"Better than anyone could ever be. I thought I hated sex.", I whisper back, wrapping my arms behind his head, and kissing his cheek. "It feels like I'm flying. Please don't stop, okay?"

I've given myself to him now, and he owns me. Funny thing about ownership is, people care about their own stuff. He handles me so gently, like I'm a fragile thing that could shatter, like I'm his to protect. His big arms wrap tight around me, warm and safe and impossible to escape. His mouth is all over my neck and shoulders, his hot heavy breath moist and condensing on my skin. Everything tickles. I thought his cock would hurt, but it tickles too. I've never been fucked so slow, never with a dick so big. I can feel it pry and slide through every millimeter of the inside of my wet, swollen pussy. I can feel his tip, the ridge around it, all the veins. It's like he's really inside me, inside the real me, like he knows me. I let my muscle memory grind my hips on him just how he showed me. I can feel the inside of my body swelling tighter and tighter on him and hear his breaths come faster when I do.

I find his ear with my lips and moan, "Shane? Hey, baby? You can fuck me harder if you want to. I wanna see how hard you want to fuck me."

He doesn't change a thing; his slow deep thrusts just keep lifting and dropping me like waves. "Aster.", his voice is low and sad, "This's how I wanna fuck you."

"Are you sure you aren't holding back?"

"Course I'm holding back. I don't want t'come until you're comin' on my cock. Just let me be with you, alright?", Shane asks softly, putting his hands up in my hair and pressing my head to his shoulder.

We don't talk any more. Shane just holds me tight, head on his shoulder, to enjoy the long, languid, deep, slow thrusts of his cock. I close my eyes and breathe in his scent, like Irish Spring and fresh dug graves, let my fingers feel his muscular arms, let my bare chest feel his heart beat. He's going to rock me in his lap all night long if I can fight coming. This feels better than coming. I never want it to end.

Shane slow fucks me into a trance, but eventually, I can't ignore it. He feels so good, and I'm unbearably tight on him, tingling, and squeezing him against my own will. I keep my eyes closed, as my hands glide up his neck and into his hair where my fingers tangle and grasp his thick curls. The sound of his strained breaths and agonized moans push me past the point of no return.

"That's it, darlin'.", he encourages, as he loses control too. Shane locks me in his arms, and holds me down, his cock pushed up in me as deep as either of us can handle. "Ah, fuck, yeah, little Aster. Jus' like that. Ah, baby, you're comin' so fuckin' hard for me... you're gonna fuck my balls dry like that, baby..."

I'm coming, and it's sweet and slow just like the fuck was; powerful, and rhythmic, it washes over me slow before I'm sucked under to surrender to the strong waves of pleasure pulsing through my body, so strong they tug at my clit, so strong they crush and batter Shane's huge cock that's jerking inside me. I can feel him coming strong and slow too, firing like a cannon deep in my core, like my pussy swallowed him. All I can do is lay myself against him and try to breathe through it, moaning his name.

"Shane... I love you." The words slip out of my mouth. He's coming too hard, heavy groans and obscenities still escaping him without conscious thought. I know he didn't hear me. I try not to freeze in horror at myself and what I've done, but I feel myself start to pull away. Just a gentle shift in the tides, as I withdraw into the void, pulled by a force bigger than myself.

I'm still coming, still feeling electric flutters and strong clenches, and Shane's cock is still gushing slow pumps of come inside me, but I start fighting to stand. I want to go. I don't know where. But I can't stay.

Shane won't let me go, holds me against him in a tight hug that's become a stifling prison. "Don't go. Just stay on me 'til I go soft, huh?", he asks, confused, still deep inside me, gripped tight, and gently thrusting. It still feels good, but I don't like it anymore.

I feel sorry for him, but my heart is thumping, and I need to run. "I gotta go to the bathroom.", I stammer quietly. When I stand from his lap, his cock is practically stuck in me, and as I pull free, I put my hand over my nakedness, and just flee, grabbing my panties from the floor on my way past.

Alone in the harsh, bald light bulb glare of the small attached bathroom, I tie the ribbons on the hips of my blue-green sequined panties like a robot in a daze before pulling them back down to sit down on the cold porcelain and let Shane drain out of me. His thick white come is still hot inside me, as it trickles from my body to plop into the cold water. I just close my eyes, and bury my face in my hands, resting my elbows on my knees. Shane drains from the empty place where I suppose my heart used to be, before it was smashed to dust and sifted away with years of being tossed and shaken on troubled waters. For the first time in over ten years, dry, bitter tears fill my eyes, and run down my face, like a sparse rain in an arid desert. Love. What a joke. I was an interesting piece of strange, a novelty. I was a fuck. A tight hole to fill. A slut to use. As if he could love a broken doll like me. I'm not sad. Just numb. Not a Nereid. Just driftwood.

I clean up and dry my eyes. I don't plan to do that again for at least another ten years. I'm just fine. I practice my easiest, warmest smile a couple times in the mirror before slipping out the door.

Shane is still there, but he's dressed now too, sitting and waiting, looking a bit like a lost dog.

"Hey.", I say softly, with that smile I practiced, climbing the stairs to the stage and taking a swing around the pole, before stepping down between his legs, my foot precariously close to his manhood on the red patent leather booth. As I let myself down into his uniformed lap, I say softly in his ear, "You oughta be a firearms instructor, the way you know how to handle that thing." I let my hand slide down his body, and grab between his legs. He's already getting hard again. "Shane, you are completely incredible. If I didn't have a thing for lap sitting before, I sure do now... and you were right. I do feel so sleepy.", I tell him slow and soft, kissing his jaw.

"You need me t'walk you out to your car?", he asks, all Southern hospitality, and those good Baptist manners.

I don't suppose Shane'll check my trunk, although Dewey's airholed body has the back end of my old Cutlass riding kinda low, with those old springs and struts I ought to change out. I'm glad I got the chance to follow that stupid, hapless fucknut out to the parking lot while Joanie blubbered on the 911 call. Glad Dewey's truck gave me so much cover, glad I can buy a gun instead of using a hammer like I had to last time, and glad Georgia is a conceal and carry state. Glad the earth here's already stained red. Glad there's gators here for me to feed him to, instead of digging all night. I love the Savannah River after dark.

"Sure.", I smile warmly again, into Shane's rugged face. Taking his hand, he follows me out of the haunted little den of iniquity, through the club, back through the garish florescent back room to throw my hoodie over my costume, and out to the parking lot. The night is wet and warm, and filled with the fresh, earthy smell of the humid forest and pines.

"Well, this is me.", I say turning to face Shane, my hand already on the gritty door handle of my Oldsmobile.

"You don't lock your car?", he asks, sounding astounded.

"Come on." I smile with a shrug. "Does this piece of crap look like it is worth stealing? Or like there's any way there's anything inside worth taking either?" I'm already sitting in the driver's seat, finding my key.

"I dunno. You got a point. Looks like y'might have a scratched 36 Chambers under th' seat. That's about it, I reckon. Still. Place like this?" Half his face sneers in disgust. "Guy could wait for you in here."

"Yeah, I guess. Thanks." I don't know what to say to his concern. Advice sometimes pisses me off. Bad shit happens. No amount of precaution saves people, and I'm beyond saving now anyway. First it's all the precautions, then the blaming the victim starts. This world's a butcher shop. Don't try to tell me how not to get my throat cut in a slaughter house. We all know that's all any of us are here for. My car's engine starts with a choke and a puff of exhaust as I turn the key.

Before I can close the door, Shane's hand stops it. "Can I follow you home?", he asks, pleading, something broken in his voice. "Sleep beside you tonight, you know, just to make sure you're alright?"

"No." My smile's feeble and cracked. I can feel that. "Think it's better if we don't." Fact is, cowards stay and traitors run. There's no pleasing me. Even if I'm not better off alone, he's certainly better off without me.

Driving away, the blackness and the trees just close over Shane, and I lose sight of his confused face in the mirror. Where Did You Sleep Last Night. I hear the song in my head as I drive the narrow, winding road lined in tall pines. Not that asshole Cobain's lame cover; he sings it like some insecure, overbearing, suspicious little prick. Leadbelly. Leadbelly sings it like the unceremonious dirge for the dead it really is. I really need to work that into my show.

I need to be alone. I couldn't sleep with my sweet Shane next to me, and I couldn't think either. I need to check on my concrete business listing, count up my cash. I need tonight to decide what to do about the rest of those pills in my dresser. Maybe tomorrow I just take all of them and let the blackness close over me instead.

 

_**Part Two: Shane** _

_**He Said/Sirens as in Squad Car/Mermaid** _

_**Soundtrack: Search Youtube "Squad Car Sirens Striplist"** _

 

"Copy. This's Car 427. What you got, Sheils?"

"We got a 240, 242, and a possible 261A. Location Top Brass. I assume you're well aquainted with the place?"

I smile and shake my head. Been a while since I rolled around with Sheils. I think she must miss it the way she flirts all the time.

"Aw, don't be like that, darlin'. Not as familiar as I am with you." Pretty sure she can hear me smile and bite my lip. "Gimme the address. An' what are those codes again? Just plain English, since we're alone on the radio at the moment, huh?"

The radio crackles static. I can hear her turning pages. She assumed I would know, and now she's scrambling, looking it up in the phone book. Woman needs to learn to use the computers.

"1682 South Service Road, just about at the intersection with Thurmond Way. And that's an assault and battery, possible attempted rape on one of the girls out there. Not sure. 911 said the girl sounded pretty worked up.", she finally answers back.

I'm already on my way, speeding over the hot asphalt in the low setting summer sun. It's just now she's answered, I can throw on the sirens. No way I was about to let her know she was right. I do fuckin' love Top Brass. Best strip joint in the nearest three counties.

Now, Glitters is for run down old showgirls, an' the place is just sad. Buncha sagged out ol' moose tits and toothless waitresses who washed outta Vegas. I like a real woman, but I like 'em well cared for. The Timeout has absolutely beautiful chicks, like, I'm talkin' girls who're an easy eleven thousand out of ten. But they're just that. Girls. I bust that place at least twice a year for struttin' underage in too much makeup. Place makes me sick, an' I keep my eyes on the floor at all times, even when I'm there for work, because I don't like not knowing if it's okay to like what I'm looking at. Top Brass is old school, an' they rarely have problems out there. Th' chicks are hot, setting's nice, an' the pervert who runs the place knows we know he has a jacket about a mile long from his past life out in Cynthiana, Kentucky. He knows we're watching him.

"They say what th' girl's name was?", I ask suddenly. I sort of have a girl out there.

"Linda said she talked to a Joanie."

"Joanie, huh? Shit. You sure?", I ask back, trying not to let Sheils hear my concern, or my engine rev that much more.

A high pitched, and clearly pissed, chuckle comes over the static of our shitty CBs. "You're sucha cliche, Shane. Yeah. Linda said she talked to a Joanie. Why? What is she to you?"

Almost four years since I banged this broad anywhere approaching regular, and she still figures she's got the right to go all afternoon soap on me.

"Just a pair'a tits." Phenomenal fuckin' tits, though. No way in Hell, Hades or Helena I'm sayin' that part to Shiels though. "But, uh, you know, she's a nice girl. Know her better from the Waffle House out in Aiken from doing interstate transfers. Chick brings me real maple syrup instead'a that log cabin corn shit, is all. You got any more details on the 261A? I'm about t' pull in here. Rather not go in holdin' my dick."

"That would be a first." Sheils says, givin' me attitude like some snot nosed punk with an ounce hid in baggy ass pants. She keeps this snarky routine up, I might just finally ask her over again some night. Gotta love a bitch who can give me shit in bed. "No. All the details are the ones I gave you."

"Alright. Well, uh, this could take a while to sort out. Until you hear otherwise from me, pass th' calls on to Rick or Bassett. Unless y'get another felony. Then uh, give me a heads up, huh, darlin'? You're a doll."

"Copy, Shane." There we go. There's the smile in her voice. Drop a doll, darlin', sweetheart, baby, whatever. You got the bird eatin' right outta your hand.

Cock bucks. Fact is, that's why I want all the felony calls I can get, and if I gotta bang Sheila again to get her to throw a few more my way than I have comin' to me, I guess a man's gotta do. Last year, union signed a contract making our bonus dependent on performance. Rick called it incentivized. I call it cock bucks. So that means all of a sudden, I don't get shit anymore, since I take my sick days. I didn't vote for the incentives, but all the boy scouts and ass kisses did. So now I gotta make it all in felony collars, because I don't feel right making my bonus all in speeding tickets either. Fuckin' quotas. So whoever this peckerhead is, fucked with my girl, I'm bringing him in. For her, and for my own 401K. I gotta prove myself? I ain't prepared to do it workin' with a runny nose, ticketing little Mormon chicks in school zones and shit. I make real collars.

So that's some of what's got me pimp parking and kickin' rocks across this parking lot, in a hurry to get inside and get this over with, hot sun stinging the burn I got on the left side of my neck, from rolling with the window down all day. Other factor? Joanie, for sure.

As soon as I shove in through the fire exit, I can see she's not on the floor, and head through the double doors into the back. Oddly enough, I've never been back here. Looks a lot like the breakroom in the station, although chicks are so damned messy, all their warpaint and shit strewn around. For a titty bar, you'd never believe the sheer volume of ugly ass clothes laying around their dressing room. But then I see Joanie, and why I'm here becomes clear to me. She's sittin' on a straight backed chair, crying into her hands with one of the other girls helplessly trying to comfort her.

"Joanie? What happened here, huh? Who did this to you?" Don't mean to bark. But this shit pisses me off. Joanie is a sweetheart. Never did stand a chance. Born with a body like this, raised without a dad, an' had a kid with some bum she probably loved when she was twenty. Then some asshole thinks he's got the right to rough her up when she's just tryin' to pay the bills?

Joanie's gorgeous. She should'a found a decent guy with money. Girl's worth it. She looks like a Bond villainess from back when those chicks still looked like chicks you really wanted to stick it in; big green bedroom eyes, full lips, bouncy hair like Marilyn fuckin' Monroe 'cept flaming red, huge real tits, an' a nipped in little waist. She's got nothing but a short pink robe I've taken her out of a time or two, on, and a pair of slide-on fluffy heels. She really does look like she stepped out of about th' decade before I was born. Chick's a bonafide bombshell.

"Dewey.", she sobs, sucking her dewey lower lip, licking away a soot black tear. "Dewey... Teach? I think? Fucking creep. I'm getting too old for this. Look at my hands, Shane. They're shaking. I can't live scared like this anymore. Thank goodness they sent you. My hero. I know if anyone's gonna catch him, it's gonna be you."

Taking her trembling hands in mine, I crouch down, try to comfort her. "Dewey Teach? What kind of a stupid fuckin' name is that anyway, huh? Teach? I'll school th' son of a bitch. Joanie, this's a small town. I'm haulin' his sorry ass in, and you can bet I won't be afraid to apply th' full force of th' law, if you know what I mean, sweetheart. You let me know when your shifts are, I'll patrol this place extra. You got nothin' to be afraid of."

Her little friend's still hovering, hand on her shoulder too, and I get the feeling she's almost as uncomfortable as I am. I don't blame them, but I hate when chicks cry. It's like it makes me feel itchy on th' inside, an' like I'd do or say anything to just make it stop. Wish I could just give Joanie a lollypop or somethin'. Well, more 'or something'. This other girl is killing my game though. T'be honest, she makes me uncomfortable.

See, Joanie's little friend is beautiful. Not like Joanie. In a rare way, like Kate Moss back when she was synonymous with Calvins, not with cocaine. She's the one girl in this place I don't ever watch dance. I haven't got around to running her through the system, but something about her, well, let's just say, she's not quite all woman. Little too thin, tits a little too small, not t'mention her hair's baby blue or somethin' like that. She seems a little young, and how attractive I find her makes me feel nauseous. So I just don't look at her. I doubt she's underage, but I couldn't live with myself if she turned out to be, and I'd taken that second look. She reminds me of the little snakehandler I dated back in Academy, never screwed. I got a rule. If it ain't broke, don't fuck it. Now, I got a feeling this girl's broken. But legal or not, girl makes me feel like an' ol' dirty bastard.

Joanie finally regains her composure enough to answer, "Oh, Shane, I didn't mean to give you the wrong impression. I just made the call. It was Aster who got yanked off her stage. I don't know how she's so calm."

"Sorry.", a timid little voice finally speaks up. It's Joanie's little friend, who's been standing here th' whole fuckin' time like a statue. "I'm Aster. I'm okay, really. Joanie, I'm fine. Really."

Looking at Joanie, I think about saying, _You serious, right now? She's the one roughed up, an' you're th' premature maddona sitting here blubbering about it?_ , but I like Joanie, and that'd make me the asshole. So I give the polite version.

"Nah, I'm sorry. Bad intel from dispatch. My mistake. Joanie, if you're alright, I probably oughta get a statement from th' actual victim, unless you're a witness?" I stand, letting her hands fall from mine, turn to Aster.

Not lost on me is the look between the girls, like Aster is pleading with Joanie not to go, and Joanie's looking at her like she's askin' if Aster needs her help.

"Or if it's okay with you", I nod at Aster without looking at her, "Joanie can stick around."

"Aster's shy.", Joanie cuts in. "She won't say a bad thing about anyone, but this shit needs to get said. Shane, you gotta put this son of a bitch away for all of us. He ain't right. The stuff he says about her? Now he drags her off her pole, in a room full of people? It's only so long until he really hurts someone, probably her."

Aster. Poor girl. I can feel my face squinting at her, trying to read her face, but it's not easy. Girl looks carved of stone.

"Joanie exaggerates.", she deflects slow and easy, with a wave of one of her hands. "The guy's a creep though. Gives me those gym teacher vibes, if you know what I mean.", she adds with a quiet sniff, before looking down, twisting on one of her bone thin ankles.

"Aster!", Joanie exclaims, through her tear stained haze. "Vibes? No. He says shit to you too. Shane's one of the good ones. You can tell him." It's Joanie, now, with her hand on her friend's skeletal shoulder, square and angular even through a fleece hoodie. "What was that thing he said just last week? The marshmallow thing?", she says with a glare, looking in my eyes, like if Aster won't say it, she certainly fuckin' will.

I get my notepad on the ready, waiting, while this Aster chick just stands there calm, sort of reluctant to speak. Half her face is covered in some sort of metallic gold leaf shit, only it's sea foam colored, but she makes it look right, like she washed up half alive on a beach somewhere. I don't watch her, but I know the show she was dancing. She's into the showmanship, I'll give her that. Can't believe this job sometimes; I almost want to list the vic in the paperwork as The Little Mermaid. Makes my job a little easier that she's got all that pretty covered up in some huge Carhartt hoodie, that she keeps tugging down.

"Alright.", she says softly. "Here's everything I know. His name's spelled just how it sounds. Dewey Teach, like Blackbeard. He's a trucker, for Halverson's, I'm pretty sure. He was on me like an addict from the first night I started here, and something about him wasn't right. There's guys looking, and then there's guys leering. His had a malice, like a jeer, something past a leer, even. So I have a punter from Edgefield Sheriff's, and I had him run the name Dewey Teach. Turned out, he did do some time in Angola."

"Yeah? That's good." I'm a little impressed. Sad thing about these girls with good instincts is they mostly learn 'em through terrible experiences. "Who's your contact in Edgefield, if y'don't mind me askin'?"

"Travis Mickenberg." She answers with a fair degree of reticence, and a look to Joanie for reassurance, wrinkling her little nose at me. "I don't want to get him in trouble."

"Nah. 'S no big deal, an' I'd turn in my shield before I'd tell the rat patrol shit. I know Travis. Nice guy. Terrible quarterback, though. Hey, uh, by any chance he tell you what it was for?"

"The prison time? Yeah, actually. Did a stint there for a statch. Got out, violated. Associating with known felons, as I recall. But it was the statch thing that got my attention." The girl's tiny, fine featured face is still stony and calm, but there's a little glint behind her huge dusk blue eyes now. Girl doesn't give much away, but now I know she's a smart one. Sure as hell enjoys being right.

"B'cause it was what you suspected, huh? What did he say to you anyway? Anything you can recall could be helpful when we bring him in." I can't tell the chick this, but I don't actually know how useful it's gonna be, unless it was a direct threat he then acted on in the commission of the assault. But I can't stand knowing there's a punchline and I haven't got to hear it. "Third strike, and all, you know?"

Joanie clicks her accomplished tongue at me, while little Aster just stares helpless, like the cat got hers.

"Aster's going to take an hour to get to this. And I don't have that kind of time, so what he said was..." Joanie pauses, and giggles, grasping her friend's arm like they're at a junior high dance an' she's about to ask me to dance with Aster as a favor to her. "... that it was a waste of time for him to watch her, get all hot for her, because he's too old to get it hard enough to get it into someone as young and tight as her. He said, 'It would be like trying to cram a marshmallow into a piggy bank.'"

Joanie dissolves into the giggles. Hot chick without a bra on, giggling? Is there anything in the world better than that? Alright. Maybe when it's at a dirty joke. I fight off a grin, but it's hard, because the discomfort on little Aster's face at all this is almost funnier. A shy stripper. Somethin' new every day. Then I think of what she said; gym teacher vibes. You gotta wonder what the real story is, behind a chick who looks like Kate Moss, strips, and can't repeat a dirty joke in front of a man. Poor kid. I'm not writing that asshole's filth in my book, but I am going to call Dean at Halverson's, see if he's got an address, see if Trav's been keeping any tabs, maybe call Angola, see if that kid who washed out of the academy last year is still working as a guard there.

I'm still writing in my book, all these leads I need to run down, when I hear the click of Joanie's heels, and feel her warm hand on my shoulder.

"Shane?", Joanie whispers, "Get this guy alright? I love Aster like a baby sister. You haul this guy in, come find me at the Waffle House tomorrow morning, when your shift is through. I'll bring you the real syrup, spill it in your lap, and lick it all off in the bathroom... I'm in the mood for bacon." Then the chick sticks her hot little tongue in my ear.

Joanie's a firecracker. Don't know how hot girls do it, but they even make callin' cops pigs hot. I like a girl with spunk. So few people walking around who are even still alive. A little spunk, and you know there's something left of 'em. I'm trying not to get hard, remember I'm taking a statement from a vic at the moment. Surrounded by all these pretty girls, an' one talkin' blow jobs while licking my ear? Not that easy.

With that, Joanie takes off, leaves me alone with Aster. Even covered up, she's pretty in a way that is really hard not to stare at, sort of haunting, like I feel like I never quite grasp her face, get a hold on it. She's got a way of keeping people far away, just my read on her. The girl's knee looks like hell, and even through her golden tanned skin, I can see thick black bruises rising all down her legs. She just averts her eyes anytime I look at her, so I try not to look any more than I have to. I forgot the camera in the car to take pictures of her injuries. Think when I'm out there, I might just run Teach through the system, and maybe her too. See how old she is.

"Hey, uh, Aster? That your real name?", I ask her.

"Yeah. Who'd pick it?", she says, wry smile spread over her pale pink lips. "My parents had a theme going. All flower names. Don't know why I couldn't have got Lily. They never used that one. Sure as heck would have been a better stripper name."

"You don't insist you're a 'dancer'?", I ask her with a grin. "Most girls'd boot a guy in th'zipper for callin' you strippers."

"I report, you decide." Her answer is dry, followed with a shrug of her thin shoulders. I can't tell with this girl if she's the most cool an' confident chick I ever met, or just the saddest with nothing to lose.

"You got a last name, Aster?" I gotta run this girl before I get any more attached, because I'm really starting to like her.

"Marshall. Aster Lee Marshall. Can you believe I wasn't even born in The South with a name like that?" She laughs softly, like a shorebird. "You ever known a girl who was born a victim of her name?"

Victim of a name. I think about that. Can't say I have before, but now, suddenly, I feel like someday I will. Gives me the chills. Makes me think of something I saw a long time ago, someone who not a day goes by where I don't think about, for more than ten years now. Wasn't her name that was th' problem, so much; just her family. Air conditioner's cold in here, after a day in the cruiser with the Georgia sun blazin'.

"Where are you from, originally, then?" I try not to phrase that like an interrogation. Always hard not to sound that way when you're in a cop uniform. Guess it's why it's hard to convince people you're a dancer when you're taking your clothes off too.

She shifts her weight from one death defying heel to another. "Imperial County. California", she answers with another little sniff, and a glance to the ceiling. "It's Mexico, really. Last county into the state. Just a bunch of longhorns and produce, really."

"Yeah. That, and the busiest drug corridor in th' country. You grow up near Brawley? Blythe?"

"El Centro." She answers so plainly, but bites her lower lip when she says it. I really wish she wouldn't do that.

"Shit. Rough little town.", I answer back with a whistle.

"Yeah. How do you know the area so well? No one here ever knows where I am talking about.", she asks, smiling at me, tugging her hoodie down over the tops of her fishnets carefully. The chick has legs for days, especially in those shoes.

"Ah, I did a state extradition once. Guy served his sentence in Calipatria. I had a couple days t'kill. Jus' drove around the desert, went over the line at Calexico to see what it was like. Never been out of th' good ol' USA otherwise." She's listening, nodding, little smile on her face.

"Calipatria? Yeah. Out in the Borrego park, pretty much? It's pretty out there. Lots of federal funding because of the huge prison. A lot more money there than El Centro." Her big eyes turn the color of ash. "You ever get out to Slab City, the Salton Sea?"

"Nah. Heard that's some crazy shit out there. Nothing but loonies an' burn units, in an' old boneyard. Lotta bodies out there, I'd imagine." I break my gaze with the girl, rub my face. "I gotta slip out t'my car. I'm gonna need to photograph your injuries for the file. You mind slipping out of those..." I'm trying not to stare at her legs.

"My stockings?", she asks, sitting down, undoing a shoe, looking like one of those big-eyed-little-girl pictures on velvet my grandma used to like so much. "Sure. But I have to go on in a few, so if I'm curt..."

"Time is of the essence?" Can't help it. I cut her off with a grin. One of my favorite lines.

"You got it.", she answers back with a quick smile. "Thanks for understanding. But we all have to make a living."

It feels good to open the door, get that rush of fresh air that doesn't smell like hairspray, bubble gum and about a thousand little girl's busted dreams. It's dark now, but still hot, like opening the door on a hot shower. One of my feet already in the gravel, I turn back.

"I can't believe you're gonna dance on that knee. I played football, y'know, jacked mine once. You're tough as nails."

She looks up, and there's an ease and a light to her. I see her. She smiles, her knee drawn up to her high cheekbone, tiny fingers working on the buckle of her shoe, mile long pale blue hair hanging down over her slight body. How she's sitting, I can see her panties; some kind of green sparkly things. I feel the blood rush to my cock, feel it jump, it's getting hard so fast. This's why I'd never look at this chick. I need to get to the car, run her name.

"Coffin nails.", she laughs, rolling her eyes, and chewing her lower lip.

I can't do anything but walk away. It's pitch black out here on the service road. No lights, too humid for a moon, tall trees all around. The dark's like an entity, not an absence. Back at the car, I can't help but miss my old Crown Vic. This stupid new cruiser has auto locks. Fuckin' pain in th'balls. I sort of wish my old cruiser had had them now, come to think of it, when I think of who's drivin' it now. I hope she always remembers t'lock up.

"Hey. Sheil? This's car 427."

"Copy, Shane. What can I do for you?"

"You run a couple names through?"

"Yeah. No trouble. Your girl out there fine?"

"Joanie? Yeah. Case of th' feels an' snivels. That's about it. Wasn't even her got roughed up. So, uh, here's th' first name. Dewey D-E-W-E-Y Teach T-E-A-C-H. Let me know what comes up."

"Got him. DOB March 25, 1971. He's got a record. Charged with rape, 2001. The vic was only 14 at the time. The family didn't want to put her through testifying, and charge got pled down to a statutory. He did four years in Angola. Released, then picked up associating, known felons, in a pill mill. Served another six."

"Shit." Fuckers like that make me sick. I've never shot someone on th' job. Looked back an' wished I had a few times. Guys say it's hard to get over, an' I s'pose it is. Guy like this though? I'd go ahead an' give myself a fuckin' medal. People watch that CSI shit, don't realize you can't trace a scattergun. Most Deputies around here roll with an AR. Not me. Those you can run ballistics on. Mossberg all th' way, ever since I was twenty six years old, for this exact reason. Always felt I might'a failed a girl. Didn't want t' get caught unprepared again. "I, uh, I got another, alright? The vic. Aster A-S-T-E-R Marshall M-A-R-S-H-A-double L."

"Yeah. Got her too. Squeaky clean. Not even a traffic violation. DOB April 26, 1980."

"You sure about that? There aren't two of 'em, or somethin'?"

"Two Asters? No, Shane. I'm sure.", Sheila answers back sarcastically. "Why?'

"Ah, 's nothin'. She's a tough read. Seemed more a Gemini." Time to pour on the charm. "See, thing is, I know you, Sheils. I'd have expected a litle more spitfire and sass from this one."

Truth be told, I'm completely tickled, an' feel like a weight's been lifted. Seems I got one of those bayou vampires on my hands here; one of those Southern girls who just never ages. Guess she's just a transplant, but I won't hold it against her. More like a cactus. Those grow slow and are tough to kill. Think I might have an idea where to start lookin' for this perp, an' get to take in one of this girl's shows, finally, too.

Giggles over the static. "You never shut it off, do you, Shane?"

"No. Endless fuckin' well. I'm here all night."

"All right. Copy."

"Over an' out."

Charging back over the dirt lot, old Nikon in hand, I feel like this's it. This douche is as likely to show back up here to finish what he started as he is to stick his head up anywhere else tonight.

"Hey, Aster?" I say, pushing in through the dented steel back door of the club, "I think I got an idea."

"Mind telling me while we get the file photos over with? Just time's a tickin'.", she answers back, voice soft. With her shoes off, she's just a little thing; hair too long, and eyes too big. She looks like a video girl Wheatus woulda picked out back in th' day. "Um, where do you want me to stand, for the lighting, and stuff?"

"Uh, let's see here. Probably just stand there where you were. Light's pretty good there, where you got those incandescents. Hey, uh, I gotta warn you. This camera sucks, so I gotta get in pretty close here. Just t' warn you."

She steps into place and looks up at the ceiling. Damn. Even in this florescent light, messy dressing room, in a huge hoodie, she's beautiful. She doesn't like standing still, doesn't want her picture taken, no doubt about that. But I can't help but frame a few of em' to catch the underside of her jawline, lip caught under her sharp little white teeth on one side, high cheekbones, those long black lashes framing her big eyes rolled up to the ceiling, framed in, I dunno, mint maybe, hair, like a dream. She makes no sense t'me. I'm crouched down on the warped vinyl floor, close enough to smell her, like salt and coconut coppertone and blue shaved ice. I bet she's shy when you lick her. I wanna teach her t' like it. Bet her back arches. I bet she gets cold while she fucks. Bet she likes it slow. I'm getting hard, wishing I could just push her back a few inches against her dressing table, put her legs up on my shoulders and get those sparkly panties out of th' way. I wonder if she'd look at me, pull my hair, grind into it so hard she'd feel my teeth. Wonder how it sounds when she moans. I need to taste her. I swear she's breathing hard right now. I want to slide my hands behind her thighs, pull her onto my face, put my tongue inside her. Pretty little thing. I just want to make her feel good.

"That enough, you think?", she asks finally, shifting on her bare feet. Girl stands on her tip toes even with her shoes off. "I gotta get ready. So what's this plan of yours?"

Standing and withdrawing from her space, I turn away from her, adjust myself. "Uh, well, I was thinkin'. This guy's been outta th'clink for years, making his parole, flying low, stayin' outta trouble. Gotta wonder if after all that time, today's th' day he picks to do something so stupid, maybe he's dumb enough t'come back. Try to finish? He say anything to you today?"

"Not really, I don't think.", she answers distracted, peeling off her hoodie over her head.

I know I should look away, but I can't. She's dressed like a mermaid, alright. Scaled green bikini bottoms, and fine time-worn fishing nets wrapped around her torso, like she's been caught and escaped over and over. She's gonna take those off though, because I can see the tiny shells covering her nipples underneath. That sparkly shit she's got over one eye and cheekbone spills down her chest on that side too, over her tanned skin. She's thinner than I like, but that's because usually, I like t'take a chick for the occasional off-road bumpy ride. Not this one though. She couldn't handle it; just crumble, fall apart and blow away. Makin' love is a cheesedip fuckin' thing to say. Kills my boner. But I will say, I feel like givin' dick to this girl easy.

"Know what?", she shatters the silence, fluffing her hair up, pulling an airbrush out of her drawer, "He was just back from some long haul. Said so when he first came in, I overheard. Sometimes when he's first back, he comes for both my sets. You might be onto something."

Just then, I hear the door behind us, and see her posture stiffen, and her little face turn back to stone. Lloyd Burns. Her boss. If I couldn't still feel my skin crawlin' from hearing Dewey's rapsheet read out, I'd say this douchebag was the slimiest shitheel I'd had the displeasure dealing with in a long while. One of those guys who only follows the rules because he knows we know he's just itchin' to break them. Educated abuser type. Still wears those western leisure suits, look like they're made of car upholstry, with a string tie an' a skullet. You look up shitheel operator, piece a'shit strip joint owner in th' dictionary? You come up with a picture of this loser.

Seedy motherfucker walks past me, like he doesn't even see me, starts in with some kind of inspection of Aster, as though she's in for a life of indentured servitude, not an employee in the fine state of Georgia, entitled to all the rights and protections afforded anyone here. I hate fuckin' dickhead bosses. Somethin' about the idea of bosses never really did sit right with me. I do what I have to in order to keep th' peace, but I'll never recognize a human authority over me; not really, anyway, an' certainly not without me consentin' to it. Keeps me from climbin' ladders, but it keeps me from walkin' under 'em too. I always think how it's too bad th' dumbass Confederacy got caught up defendin' a few rich plantation owners, defending slavery. Dark fuckin' times; blight on this place. But th' idea of some Rebel Pride, some independence? Long as it extends to all people? World needs fuckin' more of it.

This asshole's too dense to see the pissed off look in the girl's eyes. Forgets they remit percentage of tips on the honor system. If I was this chick? I'd forget most'a this peckerwood's cut every night, an' blame it on th' size of my adorable tits.

"Now, you got no tits, and green hair, okay? What you did have was legs, okay? So now you got nothing. You're in the sex appeal hole here. You're a waste of my stage tonight.", I hear Lloyd saying to the girl.

"Kristen can't even dance spinner!", Aster retorts, hidden venom in her quiet disagreement. "I need to work. I need this money. Please. I'll airbrush. You won't even be able to tell."

There's a plead in her voice, an urgency. Besides, I respect a little enterprise in a chick, and I've had it watching this sausage fingered dickwad mishandling her, poking at her bruises.

"This girl works for you. Do I have that right, man?", I ask, taking a step closer, let my hand drop to the pistol in my belt. This dog needs his chain yanked.

"Yeah. She does. So what's it to you, Deputy?", he asks facetiously, "And if your little interview about her almost falling onto a dick is over, she's got work or going home to do, so can you wrap it up, unless you wanna pay to stay and watch one a' the cows with udders?"

Now, I got no problem admitting there's differences between men and women, but I hate that denigratin' shit. If you're gonna call 'em out, make it fair. An' I hold chicks to the same standard when it comes to callin' us out. This 'men are pigs' shit? 'All men lie', 'cheat', whatever? Not 'all'. I do. But not all. But you got a fair criticism? Like we can't ever find our deodorant if there's even six other things on th' counter? I'll own that for th' gender.

"Well, uh, see, what it is to me, is that if she's your employee, what you've been doin' right in front of me for th'past couple minutes is sexual harassment, man. Y'can't touch girls that work for you, can't talk about their bodies. So y'either are makin' money, an' she's fulfilling her end of th' contract, or she's not. An' if you got complaints with her performance, well, then, they need t' be in writing, an' y'need to give notice to cancel her shifts. That's th'law. So, as I see it, it's you who's got the problems tonight. Furthermore, I'm prepared t'deputize the girl. I'm runnin' a sting here, an' she's instrumental to th' process, so..." I shrug. Man's quakin' in his imitation ostrich boots. Fact is, only part about that whole speech I know whether is true or not is th' part about touchin' the merchandise.

"Fine.", he sneers, not in my direction, but the girl's. Girl's got a look on her face like she's never had a man take up for her in her life. The change in her is so obvious to me; strikes me as a little sad, that all of a sudden, she's got the balls to stare this asshole down as he walks away, like me sayin' that was all it took.

"Thank you.", she says, her head already down, working on her legs like she's painting a car body.

"No problem. And, hey, what he said? None'a that's true. He always like that?"

"Pretty much. Or worse. The guy's a humongous asshole.", Aster answers, smiling up at me in the mirror.

"That's an understatement. Asshole that size? If he only had more hair, they could make hotdogs outta him for th' next year." That's gonna fall fuckin' flat. She'll look at me like I'm weird, like I made th' jerk store joke, or somethin'. Chicks never have a sense of humor.

She giggles. "Sorry. Took me a second...", then buries her airbrush back in the drawer and turns to face me. Did a nice job on the stems. You'd never know what happened to her.

"Nah. I'm sorry. That's just fuckin' gross. Shouldn't say stuff like that around a lady. You girls are saints not t'just gang up an' kill that guy.", I say, trying to pack the camera back into it's case. She's spraying cheap hairspray up and down the insides of her thighs, and I feel like I'm all of a sudden in on something I'm probably not supposed to be. "You goin' on right away? Your stage th' one second to the back?"

"Yeah.", Aster answers, walking past me to the chair where her stockings and shoes are, sitting down and getting dressed. "As soon as I get my shoes on. But I like a minute to myself first, if you don't mind. Just to get my head right."

"Of course. See you out there, see if we can't collar this dickhead, send him away. Alright? I'm runnin' this camera back out to the car, an' I'll just be on the floor."

Walking back to the car, in the quiet, I wonder what she meant by that. Joanie drinks before she goes out. I know it, always smell it on her. I rolled Kristen with a half an ounce on her once, just pretended not to feel it in her pocket. This one though? Aster? Don't know what her poison is, or if she even has one at all. Seems like too much of a control freak for substances. Not like control over others, but over herself. Never seems to let her guard down much.

When I get back to her stage, she's still not out, so I gotta sit here with a bunch of losers, look through the faces, and make sure Dewey's not one of them. Aster's the youngest looking girl in this place, and she's routinely got the oldest crowd. Disgusts me. I take a seat closest to her stage so I don't have t'look at anything but her. Her music's already bumpin' though. Chick always dances to shit that's weird as hell, but if I'm bein' honest here, I always was a little curious because of it. None of that Britney Spears Toxic an' Hot in Herre. Get the feeling sometimes she's probably had to be told it's go go, not cry cry.

But when she walks out, it's hard to remember what I'm there for. Girl's made for a stage, an' she knows it. All that shy's gone, and she can't even be bothered to look at the crowd, just cruisin' herself in the mirror behind her. She doesn't walk around the pole slow like Joanie does, an' doesn't waste time. She's just on it, and upside down, spinning, off and runnin'. Little Aster knows how to work her body, how to suggest things. Never let myself look at the girl before, and now I can't look away. Fuckin' hypnotic.

_"... holdin' a metal umbrella when th' storm starts t'hit... that's what love's s'posed t'feel like..."_

Half the time, her long hair falls down her chest, covers her little tits. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Joanie's huge ones. The feel of them heavy in my hands, when I lift them up, or how I can squeeze them together around my cock and fuck them until the tip of my cock's in her mouth. But Aster's got little half grapefruits that sit just that straight up, and I just want to suck them while she wraps her legs around my pole. She doesn't take her pasties off. Not ever. But I can tell she's got tiny little nipples, from the size of the itty bitty shells that more than cover them up tonight. But I think she's got that long hair to cover something else up. Her back's so bony it looks like her sharp shoulders are about to pierce right through her skin. I know girls. I know some of them are thin without trying, but I know none of them are that thin without trying way too hard. She still makes me hard. Something about her makes me want to run my fingers over her warm golden skin, between the hollows of her ribs, kiss her mouth. If my cock keeps telling me I could fix everything for her if I fucked her good enough, my head might start to fall for it.

Baby's eyes look all sultry and heavy when she sees me sittin' there, lets her spin slow, and slides down the pole to the floor. I can't help it. I watch how her panties slide down the pole, wonder if she feels it, if it feels good, turns her on, if it makes her want to slide down mine. She slips right to the floor, crawls slow to me, makes me wait and watch her. Poor little thing, crawling on that knee. The way her hair falls, I can barely catch a glimpse of her little sno-cones, but fuck, tiny tits look good when a chick's on all fours. When she gets to me at the edge of the stage, her glossy pink lips are parted and she's smiling a little bit, her dull blue eyes blown all black. Smells like I wanna eat her.

She nuzzles in close, whispers in my ear, "So, Shane... how am I doing? Think I might be cut out for this undercover stuff?" Her lips touch my ear, feel warm and wet. She rears up a little, and one of her hands finds it's way onto the back of my neck. "Am I ready to handle your sidearm yet?"

I took out cash to tip her with. Figured it makes this all look real, gives her an excuse to be paying more mind to me, so I slide a twenty between her tits, let their gentle curve graze my hand, feel her taut tummy, hollow and stretched between her sharp hipbones, pull her panties away from her skin with a finger, let my hand slide inside against her smooth skin, and leave the bill behind. Not what I wanted. I want to keep going, until I feel if I made her wet, want to rub her little clit under my middle fingertip, make it swell, make her want it, make those hips twitch into my touch. I still want to lay her out and spread her legs, just kiss her there hard until I make her come so hard she can't stand it, keep going until she needs a fuck too. My hand on her made her moan soft, like a breath she couldn't control. Work like this, the girl knows men. She knows I'm hard.

"You're doin' great. Think we both know 'undercover' isn't a thing you got any trouble with." My voice breaks. I almost forgot what she's doing here. "You uh, you see the perp around here?"

"No." She tosses her hair in my face, and slides her hands over my shoulders, kisses my cheek. Certainly knows how to make it look real.

"This's smart.", I say under my breath in her ear, her lips on mine. "Just keep playin' it like this; like I'm just a trick. Crawl over, we can talk, I'll tip you big, alright?"

"We call you punters. Tricks are for prosts.", she rolls her eyes, and answers back in a whisper. "You're the boss."

"Alright. Well, uh, then, report back soon?"

"I will." She slinks back, out of my reach, still on her hands and knees. My hands slide through her long sea foam hair.

Last chick I dated never let me touch her hair. One of those real Southern belles, dyed almost black brunette, backcombed t'make her almost a foot taller, and sprayed to napalm. Come t'think of it, I'm pretty sure she still owned a set a' those Bump Its. This chick's hair smells like nothing but water, just soft and clean, falls and breaks over her smooth skin. All I can think as she climbs back up the pole, like she's swimming up it like a mermaid, not using a thing but her ankles to do it, is how I'm going to hold her down in my lap, rock her up and down like waves, and wrap my arms around her, so I feel that soft hair falling down her back on the insides of my arms. Find out what she feels like on the inside. Sometimes an easy gentle fuck with a breakable girl just feels so fucking good.

I can feel the heat from the light bulbs around her stage on my face while I sit and watch her in the dark. I don't get stiff for Joanie until we're alone, or I think about watching her in the shower. Watching her is just for a visual to bring up later. But Aster's got me persistently sprung. I feel like she's dancing for no one but me when her eyes meet mine, and she smiles a little, licks her top lip slow. My pants are pinching my cock, and I'd reach down to adjust it, but I don't think I could take my hand off. I watch her hands on the brass pole so close, I can almost feel them on my cock, gripping it, sliding around it. I'd like her to sit next to me in one of these booths, all close, with my arm around her, with her pretty eyes looking up at mine, take my big dick out nice and slow with her tiny hand, and jerk it until I blow my load up all over her face. She'd look all surprised, shove me, laugh, lick it off her soft pink lips. Fuck, this girl's hot.

I don't guess it matters if I get this Dewey asshole tonight. He'll turn up. Not that hard to catch a guy in a big rig around here, especially since he's gonna have to go back to work sometime. Aster's unwound herself from the nets she looked caught in, somehow, while she swims up and down the pole, now she's winding them around the string sides of her panties. I just wish she'd come back over to me, wrap this thing up. Pretext maybe, but I'm going to ask her for a private dance, say I should stick around here longer, keep trying to catch the suspect. Really, I just want to be alone with her to find out if she wants me too.

When she finally does drop down to earth, she won't come to me, like if you ever want to pet a cat? The thing just walks around rubbing on everything else but you? She's doing that to me. See, I like dogs. But when it comes to people? I fuckin' love cat people. Someone who can love a cat? Those people have the patience of saints, actually get unconditional love. A cat never does what you want. The things are untrainable, and actually seem to enjoy doing whatever the exact opposite of what you want them to do is. They love you on their terms, if they love you at all. No one who can't love a cat should ever have a kid. Any old narcissist can have a dog. Who wouldn't love a dog? Hafta be a narcissist of th' highest order not to love a dog. But all cat people love dogs too. Dogs are obedient. But a cat? Forget yourself. It's all about the damned cat. So I like cat people. Anyway. I got no clue what kind of person this Aster chick is, but my dick is getting impatient with her bad kitty routine. I want her to quit torturing me and just come.

When she does finally come to me on her hands and knees, it's worth the wait. I can't think straight, forget to wonder if there's any rules. One of my hands is behind her head, up in her mint hair while the other strays back down to put a twenty under her waistband. Everything about her is smooth, her long hair, her skin. Her pussy too. I kiss her cheek, leave my hand there inside her panties, the backs of my fingers on her soft skin, the tip of my middle finger just reaching where her slit starts. I still can't totally get used to this bald thing. The chicks my age don't roll like that. Still, it feels clean. And I read it makes them more sensitive. My lips are still on her cheek, and I can't help thinking that's how soft her skin down there is going to feel too. My touch makes her breaths come fast and shallow, makes her moan soft and sharp against my ear.

"He's still not here.", she whispers.

"Do what now?", I ask back in a daze, no clue until I've asked that what she was saying. "Aw, yeah? Dewey? Well, uh, let's not worry about that yet. I can stick around. You do private dances? You think of he turns up that maybe provokes him, lets me arrest him on an additional charge I'm a witness to?"

"Maybe. I don't do private shows. I guess I could for you though." She leans closer, leans into me and puts her arms around my neck.

"I don't want to be a dick, put you out if it's not a thing you do.", I tell her. "I'd never wanna make a girl uncomfortable." I mean that. It never occured to me that I never have seen her once even touch a man in here. She dances. That's it.

"Are you kidding?", she purrs slowly, arching her body towards me. "I'm already... uncomfortable."

"Oh, uh, you mean this?", I ask her, pressing the tip of my finger that's still in her panties against her. "You want me to move it?"

"Shane... you big meanie...", she pants in sharp breaths against my neck, getting my finger wet. "Depends what you mean by 'move it'. Take it away? No. If you mean move it lower, stroke that? Then yeah... But you're going to get me in trouble. I have to finish my set. We can do this in my room later."

"Nah. I can't wait here like this.", I argue with her. "No one's gonna know th' difference if you cut it short. C'mon. Swing around my pole." She looks down over the edge of the stage, wants to see it. I just bite her earlobe when she's so close. "Don't you wanna sit on it, see what I can do with it?"

"Yeah.", she moans soft and breathless in my ear. "You know I do. I need you to bounce me up and down on it all night."

My cheek is against hers, my face lost in her fresh hair, one hand still holding the back of her head while she waits on me on all fours, my other hand still inside her sparkly string-sides. She's whimpering for it, her lips on my ear, while I growl into hers.

"I'll do you one better, Aster, baby. I'll rock you to sleep on it."

"My fucking word, Shane. When you ask like that...", she groans with a tense whine, "Okay. You get your way. Just let me do my finale, and then I'm yours."

Mine. She said it. I watch her slither away from me, feel her slide from my grasp, but I can't stop thinking it, I'm yours, she said. Good thing too, because I don't like sitting here in a room of needle dicks, all watching her, all thinking about sticking their pitiful little pricks in her sweet little body. They all see her as some dead thing who knows how to let her soul leave her body so they can fuck the shit out of her, dry, in an alley or some shit, hurt her and leave her like that. They all think these girls are tapped out trash who can't feel. I see how these girls all wash up on this beach. I go to their homes when they're kids, try to help their moms, try to send them home when they're out with some dimebag douche who's twenty fucking five when the little girl's still sixteen. No such thing as a slut, unless it's some common bitch who'd cheat on me with a pencil-dicked fuck when I love her with my whole heart. But this chick? Aster ain't that. She's a death before dishonor chick.

She's got fuckin' style to burn too, dancing to The Coasters. See, you'd never catch the other girls around here doing that kind of classy as balls shit. Joanie shoulda married a rich man. Aster? Shoulda been rich herself. Girl thinks so hard it hurts her head, I'd wager. She's managed to work a song into her show, one where she dresses up like a mermaid no less, that references Mexicali and caster nets. I got a feeling how she's gonna end this thing, and I like it. I didn't even think about it, but my hand's holding my own dick tight, stretched down my leg. All I can think about is stretching her, working into her hot little body, slow and easy. I'm not gonna hurt her at all, just let her cream all over me until I can slide in, inch by inch. Just how she's moving now on stage? I want her to move just like that on me while I'm inside her.

I like variety, but her body's just objectively perfect. Golden and smooth, there's nothing on her that isn't immune to the laws of nature and gravity, nothing on her not toned, nothing not tight. And she's got that exasperating, beautiful, fine featured face, all angles and an unhealthy skepticism written on it at all times. Few months back, I'd have hated her fuckin' hair. But things change. Things happen that change you. My hand releases my johnson, so I can rub my forehead and my eyes. Ever since that night, sometimes my head still screams momentarily, makes me see two'a everything in every fucking imaginable color all running together. So her green hair? Not the same cause for a sermon admonishing feminine fuckin' absurdity as it once was.

It's a while now since I banged a girl sober. Thing is, I don't feel that sober. Some girls give you that feeling, like th' whole earth is spinning the other way. Maybe it's just her. She's got that brass pole gripped somehow between her thin legs, and she's just spinning around and around, so slow, throwing her nets. I know I'll get th' last one. Shouldn't brag, but I always do, situation like this. I'm good at seducing chicks, an' there's about as much point to denying it as there is to tits on a boar.

Even knowing it was about to happen, when her final net falls over me, and I see her walk towards me, reeling herself to me with the net, my heart skips. Nah. The fist wrapped in blood in my chest pounds, hits the inside of my ribs like knuckles on a rough cement wall. I look at her body move; her little tits don't bounce, just have this snappy little jiggle when she steps. I can see the sinews and bones under her taut golden skin moving her sex machine body steadily toward me. She looks like one of those dirty Asian cartoons, like a giant squid is gonna come up from the depths and do terrible things to her and she's gonna like it, with her big eyes and ice cream hair, little Sailor Moon face. I wanna lick every inch of her; where her legs meet her torso, right where her pantie legs go; peel those little seashells off her tits, lick the sprinkles off her sundaes; wanna feel her long hair fall in my face while I lick her slender neck and suck her ears. I got blue balls aready off this chick. I'm taking my time with her tonight.

As I stare up at her thinking, she slides off the stage into my lap, her net wrapped around my back. A second ago, all I wanted to do was jump up there, push her down, spread her legs and eat her out. All I could think about was how I bet she oozes pure cherry juice. But now, her warm body is on mine, her lap grinding slow in mine, and I can see it in her dark, stormy eyes that she wants this more.

"Shane?", she says in a quiet, breathy little voice, "Follow me, okay?", right before she languidly summersaults out of my lap onto her feet, spins my bar stool around, her little hands gripping my knees tight. Bet she does that when she sucks my cock too.

I don't bother with an answer. Girl knows I'll follow her sexy ass. She struts me right out of the room, still hung up in her net. For a chick whose shoulder blades could break the skin, she's got nice curves to the back of her hips. One of those little bubble butts, just enough flesh for the strings of her panties to sink in a little once they get around past her hip bones. I wanna sink something else into her, bent over the stage, in this private room. Doubt her little body could handle it in that position though. Maybe I could sit her in my lap, facing out. Hold her hips, see my thumbs dig into her flesh right there, like her panties do. Just grind her around, slow and easy, slide my hands round, between her legs, rub her hot, smooth clit until I make her come.

But as soon as we are alone in the dim little room, she presses me against the black velvet wallpaper, and kisses me deep. Her lips are swollen, her mouth warm and moist, and I thrust my tongue into her mouth and kiss her hard, until my teeth dig into her top lip. When I grab her ass, her legs just find their way up around my hips, and soon she's the one pressed to the wall under me, bouncing her strong little body up and down against my cock, all our clothes still on.

"How come you don't like me?", she asks suddenly, out of breath.

I exhale. S'pose it sounds impatient.

Taking her hand, I slow down dry humping her hot body, force her hand inside my pants until she's gripping my aching cock, dripping clear come for her already. "Don't like you? What th'fuck do you think this is, huh? You feel that? You feel what you did to me?"

She smiles, jerks me a little, kisses me, before her smile falls again. "Then how come you never watch me when you come in? You watch everyone but me."

See, to me, this feels like she's tryin' to pick a fight. Not that I care, this far gone. I'm not opposed to fight-fuckin', if it wasn't for the fact she looks sad, and sad rarely leads to getting laid.

"Well, uh, guess th' simple answer is that I didn't know how old you were 'til tonight.", I say, pushing a long strand of her sea foam hair out of her face, kissing her soft cheek. "I'm th' first to admit, I can be a dick. A pig even, of a multitude of stripes, an' you can take that how you will.", I add, grinning crooked at her, trying my best here. "But I'm not a fuckin' creep. I'm not blind. I could see you were a pretty girl. Just thought you looked young, that's all. I, uh, I don't get off on that. At all. I'd feel like a piece'a fuckin' shit."

Her face lights up, and she kisses me impulsively, on the mouth, and I can feel she's smiling.

"Shane.", she says my name soft and sweet, "Shane. You are just such a good man. I always knew you would be. I always wanted you to watch me. I tried to make shows you would like, just to get you to come over to me. I just wanted once in my life for a good man to want me. All I ever get is the creeps. The bottom of the barrel, scumfuck, freakazoids." She's kept all the bills I gave her stuffed away in her shoe, instead of slipping them in the slots in her stage, and now she hands them back. "Do you like me enough to take this back? I couldn't keep it."

"Of course." Now it's me whose words come out low and quiet, while I look in her eyes, and she slips down between me and the wall to stand back on her feet. "You like me enough to dance for me for nothin'?"

She's the girl from the stage again; The Little Mermaid. Not the scared little thing from the back room anymore. She kisses me, puts her hand on the front of my pants until she finds my cock and rubs it hard again.

"I like you enough to do lots of things."

"Don't s'pose you're old enough to be over Forever fuckin' 21, though?", I tease her, grabbing her ass and pulling her against me. "Because, uh, I'd date you if you could promise never to drag me there on days off."

"Oh, come on.", she purrs in my ear, unzipping my pants. "That's where I got these bikini bottoms. I'd do this to you in the change room..."

"Just sayin'. Drake's a fucking mood killer. 'Specially a remix."

She rolls her eyes, but I don't care. I love it. She's got her body on mine, and she's handling my cock with both her hands. And she's smiling. "I hate that shit too.", she laughs, "What about Sublime makes you think I'd have any time for that?", she giggles, sliding my dick between her legs, pushing it hard against her panties, and moaning, loud and sexy. "Don't worry. You wanna see me try on bikinis? I'll find a way to drown out the noise."

"All I want? Is to get you out of th' one you're in. You gonna dance for me or not?" Sorry. Fine piece of ass or not, I'm not conceding to a shopping mall on a Saturday. Not something you should ever tell a chick though.

She doesn't want to stop. Her eyes are closed, but mine are wide open, watching her in the stingy light of this one tiny chandelier in the room. She's rubbing her thin body on mine, one of her hands has me out of my pants, and her other is reached behind my head. Aster's a good kisser, like she's eating the nothingness in me, hungry and consuming. I want to consume her too; eat up any love in her, lap up the approval. Men get hungry too. She is getting the chills, just like I thought she would. I run my fingertips down over her thin arms, watch the goosebumps prickle under her skin in the wake of my touch, and finally close my eyes to her beauty, so I can hear her breathe, feel the warmth of her small body through my uniform. She's grinding, but she's not doing it how she needs it, she's doing it for show, so I put my hands on her hips and get her on it right. The glittery stuff on her panties is scratching my cock, but I don't care. It's getting her wet. No man deserves to feel as good as sliding inside of her is going to feel. Little penance first serves me right.

Finally, with a sad little whimper, she pulls back, leaning her back tight to the wall. "I gotta cover the camera. I feel sick thinking Man Pony might be watching this." She shudders, makes a face. "He's disgusting. Likes to lock his office and watch the feeds from the rooms."

Something about this girl. I know she's a stripper. I get that. But the idea of someone seeing her like this? Her really turned on, her trying to come? The faces I'm gonna make her make, how I'm gonna make her sound? The idea he'd watch that moment when I have to hurt her a little to get inside her? That's mine. An' she's her own. I think sometimes I shouldn't come to places like this, what this life does to these girls, wearing all their expectations away slow, like whitecaps pounding limestone, but then I can't stay away either. I don't know which of us is the wave, and which is the stone anymore, and I can't say as I care. I find my hands in her soft cotton candy hair, my lips just sucking in the taste of her sweet, slick mouth, and I know I won't let her leave this room until I've found out if she tastes like salt water taffy. I'm not leaving until I hold her in my lap and edge back and forth from coming until I make her come so hard that her pussy forces me. I still want it slow and easy, because there's nothing easy about that with a girl like this. And I don't want to hurt her.

"Hey? Aster, hey?", I get her attention, pushing back from her. "Let me get it. You got somethin' to cover it up with?"

"Mmm. Shane. Thanks.", she groans out, sultry and sleepy. "Here. Use this. Just wrap it around. It's up there.", she says pointing to a small camera by the exit sign over the door, and handing me the caster net she used in her show. Before I pull back from her, I zip up.

While I'm trying my best to get total coverage over the eye in the sky, she's on some little intercom, talking to some pervy nerd, telling him to cue up her set list again.

There's a small rounded red booth set up around the poles in these rooms. Basically, it's a table dance, with a pole on the table. She's already spinning by the time I sit.

She slows down, looks in my eyes. "Can I see it?", she asks, sly smile.

I'm glad she asked. Fuck. This girl. I'm so hard my pants are pinching. It's grown down my pant leg so far, it's hard to pull it out. Even my own hand on it feels good. Not like one of her soft little paws, but still good. Every guy wants to see a pretty girl's eyes get huge, bite her lip slow, lick her lips, and take a big heaving breath in through their mouth when they see you handle your own cock, just usually, that ain't a chick's reaction. But Aster? She does all that, while I stroke, and then lays down on her tummy on her stage, her head hanging off far enough for the tip of her tongue to lick the dew off the head of my cock, while she absentmindedly humps the stage, her hips rolling slow and deep, thighs clenched tight together. Probably the only way mermaids can do it.

"So fuckin' sexy.", I slur. "Stop it. You'll come like that. You'll make me. I got a thing for this mermaid thing you got goin'. First real wet dream I ever had." And the last terrible nightmare too. I push that thought away. Tonight fuckin' belongs to my id, and I'll be damned if I let my super ego get in the way of all this girl's sex appeal.

With her mouth still full of cock, she shakes her head. "No. You're gonna have to stop me."

I like a little bit of back talk, feel a grin tug at my lips. "Final notice. Keep it up girl, an' this's gonna be the second time you get pulled off your stage tonight. An' I won't be afraid to spank you."

"Fine.", she looks up at me, her eyes defiant, tongue jutting out to try to lick my cock, still writhing against the floor of her stage. "I like spankings."

She doesn't have to ask for it twice. I can't wait to slap that ass of hers. I grab her arms and pull her smooth body over the slick stage right down into my lap. She's so light it's like throwing a ragdoll around. I don't even give sexy little Aster a chance to start teasing me back, get all the way into my lap, before I spank her, let my big hand hit her round little ass hard.

Sharp little fingertips dig into my chest. "Do it again.", she says, ordering me in her tiny quiet voice. Remember reading about that, once, for a course we did on identifying vics. Some shrink type says girls who got hurt, you know, as kids, get their voices stuck like that, all high and childish. Maybe some sort of way to try to lull the perps into not abusin' 'em. Maybe some kind of stunted maturation brought on by the abuse. I don't want to spank this girl again. I want her to let me be nice to her, just in case.

"You some kind of sucker for punishment?", I ask her, not really meaning it as a tease, just a real question.

"No.", she says coy, pushing her fingertips into my chest again, kissing my lips gently. "Just a big sucker for you, that's all. Come on. Spank me again, and do it hard enough you make me feel it on the inside, okay, Shane?"

I want to be nice to her, sure. But an order's an order. I want her to enjoy this. So I spank her hard, over and over, watching over her shoulder in the mirror behind us, the way her back arches, the way her little ass jiggles. She's moaning, bending forward more, spreading her legs, so my hand strikes her harder. Looks like a twisted Norman Rockwell image; oversexed, half undressed cop 'disciplining' a mermaid stripper. I'm not a violent man, and she's not a bad girl. I don't want to like what this picture looks like, but I can't help it; my cock does. It makes me hard.

"Why d'you wanna play at being a bad girl?", I ask her, kissing her sweet mouth, rubbing her smooth ass with my hand before gently holding her waist.

"Playing?", she asks, perplexed, her timid hands in my hair, as I guide her up into my lap. Her eyes look down, lashes laying on her high cheek bones. "Look at me. I ain't good, that's for sure."

"No. And I ain't either. We're all born into sin. Nobody righteous in this whole bereft, sun circlin', drain circlin', cesspool. But you aren't a bad girl. You're a sweet girl, pretends to be bad. So just quit pretendin', for one solitary night, an' be with me, alright?", I ask her, rolling her soft, smooth little earlobe between my lips.

Her hips drop her down into my lap, and she leans into me close, just barely grinding slow circles on my cock, bearing down. "I'll try.", she whispers, sucking and licking my neck with her pointy tongue.

"Ah, Aster, girl... that's right. Don't do it like some bullshit lap dance. Do it so you can come.", I say before I pull her face to mine, hold her head and kiss her.

This is the feeling I like, why I need chicks. I love when they want me. It's that knowing I'm turning on a hot piece, an' she's so into me that she can't help herself. Gets me hard that I can make a hot girl come, make her want it, make her body betray her will to me. Pleasing a girl is the ultimate power over her. Nothin' in this world makes you feel more like a man than making a sexy girl come. My mouth's waterin' just thinking about making her.

"Baby?", I interrupt over her weak little moans, "C'mon. Your knee's gotta be killin' you. You don't need to kneel on it all night."

"Mmm, Shane. I took something for it. I'm okay.", she says softly, smiling slow and sultry, before kissing that spot behind my ear and whispering, "All I feel is you, and you feel so fucking incredible I'd do anything for you."

"Anything?"

"Uh huh." She can only speak in breaths.

I take her and lay her out on her stage, missing her weight and the motion in my lap immediately. But I really need to see if she melts when I lick her. I undo the strings of her panties, take them and throw them on the floor. My hands wrap around most of her legs, push her tanned thighs apart, push her knees back.

"Damn." I want this girl so bad it's really starting to hurt. "You got tanlines."

"Yeah. Do you like it?", she asks me, looking shy.

"I do. Don't know why, but that's always been sexy t'me." I'm sitting on the edge of the booth, pulling her little body further off the stage, right to my face. "I just like how you're formed down here too. You're so fuckin' fine, darlin'."

It's true. She's made just how I like them. I'll confess an aesthetic appeal to those kittens that look like a couple chubby bunny ears, little control center hidden somewhere between them. That's how Joanie's set up. But one place I'll admit I like a pair of thin lips? Down there. I like a chick's hot little button where I can find it. Aster's a little squirmy, so I hold her ankle, kiss her messed up knee.

"You must have been scared, when this happened, huh?", I ask. Give her a second to warm up to me, get comfortable having me between her legs. She's had a pretty rough day. Girl'd have to be a stone psycho not to be shaken up by it.

"I guess. It all happened so fast.", she says, shrugging it off, smiling shyly at me. "And you're here now, so that's kinda nice."

"You're nervous to let me go down on you?" I ask her, because she keeps sort of straining to sit up. I can tell. Not a reaction I'm used to, but whatever. She'll come around.

"Maybe. It's not you. I've just never done it before.", she confesses, looking away, turning the foiled side of her face to me.

"Do what?!", I ask her, knowing I sound incredulous. "Well, uh, we're gonna have to fix that, then, 'cause I wanted to do this to you since I first saw you."

None of those muted whimpers and moans from her as I lower my head, sink my face between her thighs. She's so quiet I'm pretty sure without the pounding sex music playing over blown out speakers in the ceiling, I could hear her heart thudding. I keep my hands inside her long, toned thighs, just above her knees, prying them apart against the tensing of her muscles, and lean over her until I feel her smooth skin on my cheeks, and my lips part to taste her, kiss her deep. Damned right. She tastes sweet and caustic, like blue raspberry shaved ice, and when my tongue flicks over her tiny round swollen bead, she melts, moaning for me again, in a long, low, pleading whine.

I raise my head, ask her, "Not so bad, huh?" As if she could make any denials, with her back arched liked that, big eyes lolled back in her pretty face.

"No. Not bad at all.", she answers back slow, eyes closed, hips still grinding up towards the air. "I don't want you doing me any favors though. I don't like owing someone. Let me do you, Shane."

"It's a favor to me, girl. Trust me.", I growl in her ear, standing to lean over the stage to kiss her. Both her grabby little hands seek out my cock, gripping it and rubbing it, pulling the tip down so she can hump up against it. "See?", I ask her, kissing her mouth hard. "That's yours. You did that. Your hot little pussy did that to me. I wanna eat it. That's what's got me so hard I'm about t'split the skin. Hot girl comin'? Because you fuckin' made her? Nothin' in the world men like better. You come on my cock, because I'm fuckin' you so good? You could fire me off just blowin' on it like a birthday candle, darlin'. Just trust me, Aster."

"I do trust you.", her soft words breathed warm and moist on my sunburned neck. "Fuck me, Shane. You don't have to wait. I'll give everything to you right now, even if I am scared, just a little"

"Scared?", I ask her, withdrawing enough to see her face, look in her eyes. I smooth her long hair, push it back from her forehead.

Little smile breaks out on her lips, and one of her tanned shoulders lifts slightly towards her ear in a shrug. "It's just... well... you're awfully big."

What I wanna tell her is, if I had a dollar for every time I'd heard that from some skinny chick? I wouldn't need to be strivin' for the felony collars to make up my bonus in cock bucks, lets put it that way. Could probably retire to an island somewhere, take her and a few of those said chicks along to keep me company. This's probably one'a those moments the polite version gets me laid though.

"Yeah. An' you're awfully small. Sounds good t'me.", I joke with a grin, before laying down over her again, letting her legs wrap around my hips. I kiss her ear, suddenly sensing she's not just flirting. "Don't worry. I've done this before, believe it or not. I can make it not hurt. But, uh, you are definitely not ready yet.", I add, sliding my middle finger in her mouth.

Pressing my wet finger to her, she's slick and hot, dripping wet for me, but tensed so tight I have to work in slow and gentle.

"Nah, sweetheart. You are definitely not ready. Not even close. You gotta let me help you relax first, alright? I can't fuck you until you come once first." She feels different than most girls, like she's just impossibly tight, smooth as silk, and almost pillowy on the inside, not a ridge, not a spot were it feels like she can stretch at all. Made for a slow ride. Girls made like this pop a cherry even a hundred times in if you fuck 'em too hard. "Besides. I need to taste you some more."

I'm kissing down the warm skin, stretched taut over her caved in tummy, thinking how she smells like everything good about spring break, ignoring her hands in my hair, that are half trying to push my head away as I get closer to putting it between her legs. She's whimpering at me, half protesting, as if I'm gonna think she means it, how wet she is, the way she's leaning into my finger inside her. Feels good to finally just put my mouth on her, sit down on the edge of the red leather booth, feel the warm, gentle grip of her thighs on my head as she submits to it, lets me in. Aster moans my name, quits trying to fight my head away with her hands, and instead covers her eyes with her palms and arches her back.

"Oh my stars, Shane...", she barely whispers in a tiny little voice. "What are you doing to me?"

I don't ruin it to answer her. I just eat a girl how the spirit moves me. One thing I know is, chicks lose their mind if you get your mouth on 'em right, try to suck their little cinnamon heart while you're licking it. Not that easy, but there's a knack to it. She's put together just right though, so I just put my tongue on her and lick her hard, push my lips tight against her moist, sweet flesh, and take a half a breath in. Her pussy grabs my finger, pulls on it hard, an' she calls out my name, staring all blank faced up at the mirrored ceiling, so I know I got it. After that, I don't even think about it, just kiss her there how I feel like it, work my finger inside her how I wish I was fuckin' her. My cock's standing up straight in my lap, drips of clear blank shot running down it, just thinking about how it's gonna be to finally put it in her, get lost in her relentless body. I'm thinking about it so hard, watching her face while she gets close to coming that I'm fucking up into nothing like she's already there in my lap.

I love making a chick come this way. How you really learn what their bodies are capable of; what's happening to them. Because for a guy? When you're fucking them, and they come, you come too. Just a fact. And then you aren't paying attention to a thing but yourself. But this is different; I notice everything. She gets really quiet, holds her breaths longer, her legs quiver against my head, and just like I thought, Aster shivers. I can feel her firm little clit pulling down against my tongue, the inside of her body going tight, twisting a little to the right, so strong she holds my finger right where it is. When you're with a chick in this, you can feel it. You can tell, practically count it down until she screams, then whines and pants and moans for air, begging her own body to stop feeling so damned good, and yours to stop tormenting her.

Aster doesn't use words when she comes. Not at all. I always sorta like that, because you know it's good for them if they can no longer remember the fuckin' English language. It's been a long, long time since I fired a warning shot, but this girl's got me close. She's coming in these bursts of flutters, her little clit just rubbing itself on my tongue from the force of the explosions inside her. She's not a squirter, but I bet I could teach her to do it, the way she gets so much wetter when she's coming. She comes forever; I made it happen to her, but she doesn't look at me, doesn't say my name. She's turning me on, but I want her attention, wish she'd tell me how good it was. I know she's never had better; I just want her to say it. She makes me feel like I'm not even here.

So what's a man to do? I pick her up and pull her into my lap, and kiss her, stroke her hair, try to make her look at me. I don't even attempt to slip inside her, just slide her hot throbbing pussy around on my cock, hold her. It's how I wanted it; feeling the warmth of her body, the tickle of her hair on the insides of my arms while I wrap them around her tight. She finally seems like she's here again, when she reaches behind me, holding the back of the booth, and kisses my mouth, deep and gentle. Her soft lips seal on mine, and without reserve, she moans, exhaling and cautiously pressing her tongue into my mouth, drawing in a new breath, stealing my air.

My eyes are closed when she asks me through the kiss and her muffled moans, "Ah, Shane... how did you do that? I can't stop coming."

"I know. I can feel it.", I say, kissing her high cheek bone, more just dragging my lips and tongue over her face. Truth is, I can. I take hold of her sharp hips and rock her in my lap, feel the slow clenches of her tight pussy against my swollen cock. "That's 'cause you only came here.", I tell her, sliding a fingertip to her feverish clit. "You need to come from th' inside too, or you're gonna have a wicked pussy ache that your fingers ain't long enough to make go away."

Her head snaps back, and she whimpers out a swear word before slithering out of my lap to the floor, to kneel between my knees. She's pulled my shirt down off my shoulders, and wrestles me out of the rest of my uniform, clumsily sucking my cock on and off the whole time. She's not even put off, slowed down one bit, by my gun belt. She grabs ahold of it, specific, to yank my pants down, driving her head down in my lap so hard that I disappear in her mouth all the way to my balls. Aster uses her whole body like a piston, the little athlete she is, pumping up and down my shaft so fast I'm already seeing red.

"Babe? Uh, hey, Aster?", I try to get her attention, get her to look up at me. When she doesn't, I slide my hand gently through her hair, try not to startle her, but get her attention. I feel her flinch, throat go tight, her mouth get dry. "Hey, sh, sh. Not tryin' to scare you.", I assure her softly. "Just, sweetie, you gotta stop that. Come here. Get up in my lap. I want you here."

I pull her up by the arms so she doesn't get a chance to slink away, distract me out of it. Her eyes always seem to look past everything, like she's seeing double, or like she's doing one of those magic eye puzzles. She can live her life out of focus on her own time, but not on me, not on my dick. I want her, and she said she was mine.

Once she's in my lap, I look at her, force her gaze to meet mine, pull her hips into place, hold her tight in my arms, right where I want her. All avenues of escape closed, she sits there on me, her long hair breaking in waves down her chest covering most of her nakedness, her warm thighs squeezing mine, and she sees me, whether she wants to or not.

"Why'd you make me stop sucking you?", she asks finally, her face looking innocent, sort of afraid to hear the answer, while I thrust against her, preparing her.

"Because. I want to come inside'a you." I don't know why I tell Aster the truth. Comes out sounding fucked. Like the most forsaken lonely thing a man playing fast and loose with far too many lives in one moment could possibly utter. I don't care though, as long as she doesn't. She doesn't. I see it in her dark blue eyes, written on her little doll face through all that make up, almost instantly. She's a girl just living to die too.

She leans close, nuzzles her face to my neck, lets me really hear those little moans, the desire mixed with what must be a pretty sharp pain for girls, while I work my cock into her, watching her in the mirror behind us. She feels like I thought she would, only better, her smooth, tight walls touch on the inside, and I just want to pry her apart slow, slide in and out. I can barely move inside her, she's so tight, except that she's so wet and slick, juicing all down my shaft.

"Shane...", she breathes in a suffocated whimper, "That's about the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me. It doesn't scare you?"

"To come inside you? Nah. Doesn't scare me. Except maybe a little for you, that you'd let me." Chick doesn't need to know the kind of shit I think while I'm fuckin'. It's this job, this world. Me, I guess. But Aster's got no lines around her eyes yet, no scars. She doesn't need to hear that shit now, all my fuckin' doubt, all my dire observations on the state of people, much less her. I'm puttin' my weight on her, imagining things. The girl likes shopping malls and trips to the beach. She's not a damned mess like I am. So I add, "This feel good, Aster, baby? I'm not hurtin' you?"

She kisses me on the mouth like she's in love with me, some sad sounding go-go cry-cry, playground love song plays over the burnt up speaker, and I'm the one who feels cold, some kind of a nostalgic chill in this dark, haunted little room. When I pull her even closer to me, she finally allows her body to fall limp in my arms, and I push my cock up in her the rest of the way. Aster just breathes heavy for a second, her firm tits pressed into my bare chest, her parted lips grazing my shoulder. Buried inside her crushing, hot body, I hold her tight and impale her on me gentle and slow, over and over.

"Ah, Shane...", she fights for enough air to whine out the words, "It doesn't hurt at all. I feel like I'm floating."

Near death experience. That's a messed up thought, but it's what that reminds me of. Not saying I don't know what she means. It's so hard to go slow and easy in her, but it's what I want. I feel numb all over, except for the violent throb in my cock, telling me I could come in two hard thrusts, while my spinning head fights, and tells me that if I can wait for her, she'll fuckin' black me right out, and I won't need a chick for a month after. Then I'll jones for her, like an addict, probably give it to her hard and fast the next time, so she's not walkin' right for a week after. She's so smooth and hot inside, like fucking a tight packed cluster of lubed up water balloons filled with scalding water. Something like that anyway. Girl makes me feel far away. I hold her down on me so she doesn't just float away, grind her hips back and forth on me while I slow fuck her up and down, like driving her over dips on a dirt road.

I always half wish a chick would fall in love with me while I'm doin' this. I really don't know if they're capable of it, though. I'll use myself right up to make a girl feel good.

Aster's so quiet, slumped over my shoulder, but I feel close to her. Probably partly because this's taking so long, and we're working on it together. Slowly, I feel her hips start to snap just a little. Moans start to sneak into her anguished breaths. Her fingers dig into my arms. The inside of her starts to squeeze and twist on my cock, and before I can stop it, she's wrung one slow, hot burst of come out of me, left me tingling all the way to my knees.

"Do it how you want to, Shane.", she urges in dulled whimpers in my ear. "You don't have to hold back. Do it how your cock wants it, if you weren't just trying to be nice to me."

"This's how I want to fuck you, Aster." I assure her, want her to believe it, though I doubt she does. Bad things have happened to this girl. I'm so close, I can feel myself swelling hotter and harder; feel how bad I need it. I'm fucking her so gentle and slow that even though I'm in her deep, my balls feel sore and heavy. "C'mon, baby. Let me have it.", I hear my dry voice in her ear. "Come for me. I'm not gonna stop until your wet little pussy tugs th' come right out of me."

"I'm trying.", Aster answers back, sounding frustrated. At first I think it's with me, but then I realize it's with herself. "It's so hard for me. I don't know how. I think I'm close though."

"Yeah. You're close.", I assure her. "Baby, you just need to relax, huh? Here. Don't move at all.", I put my hands back on her hips. She's got a problem, some kind of horror in her head, tells her she's beyond hope. I can't find words for that. Never could. Wish chicks could understand what it means when a man wants to fuck them like this. Anyways. I have a feeling half her trouble is she can't stand to feel responsible for this. Makes her feel dirty. Some kind of body shame, self loathing bullshit that girl carry the opposite way men do. She wants me to make her. That's what she wants? I'll make her come. "Lean forward on me a bit, alright? Just lay your head on my shoulder, honey."

She does what I say, holds me sweetly with her hands, and I feel her thin body pressed to mine, slick with my sweat, her face buried in my neck. I keep rolling my hips under her, slow and deep, push her down on my pubic bone so she rides it with her little clit while I fuck her. She's so close, so wet, twitching inside when I reach the top of every thrust. When I don't hear her breaths? When I feel the crushing pinch of her tight pussy trying to push my cock out? I know she's about to cry out, come harder than she has in her life.

It's not the same flutters as she was having when I gave her face. This's slow and powerful, like she's got a closed fist in there, wrapped around me, beating me up and down. I come with her, round for round, holding my own breath, hard shot for every one of her relentless contractions.

She can barely handle it, hardly breathing, she's got nothing in her but these strangled, high pitched, short little groans.

"Ah, Aster. Ah, fuck, Aster. Baby, you're gonna fuck me right out. You're gonna milk my balls fuckin' dry.", I rasp in her ear, holding her waist tight as her back arches for another round of strong clenches inside her. "I told you, you could do it. This feel good, baby?"

She kisses me again, her mouth over mine, her little pointy tongue begging me to suck it, while I come inside her, holding her perfect little tits in my hands, her flesh cool and smooth. The inside of her's smoother, hot as fire, still coming on my cock too.

When she breaks from the kiss, she whimpers, "Yeah... Shane.... oh, yeah. Yeah, you make it feel so good. I never knew it could be like this."

Aster goes to say something else, but I interrupt her amidst some moans of hers with some of my own. Then I get this idiotic urge, in the moment, to try to say something to her. Like as if talkin' has ever helped anyone.

"Somethin' bad happened to you, didn't it?", I ask, under my breath as she says something to me that I miss on account of talking.

Really wish I'd have just shut the hell up. Wish I'd have heard what she said instead.

All of a sudden, Aster's scrambling to get off of me, even though her pussy's still got a death grip on me. She's faster than she was with her nets on stage, whirling around to grab her gear off the floor and flee. I feel stunned and stupid, sitting there naked, one last shot pumping slow out of me, like a volcano, with this girl running away like one of those scared deer who jumps through the window of a hardware store.

My body feels good; that's the hardest I've came in at least a couple years. But me? I feel like shit. Set out to make the girl feel good, still seems like I made her feel bad. Now I'm alone in the dark, getting myself dressed, limbs still shaky and numb, wondering what I said wrong. Guess I was wrong in the assessment, and offended her. Or I was right. Hit a nerve. Brought back some red hot shame and anger at some brutal injustice she's never going to see resolved; some hell the girl went through that she doesn't need to relive with a man's dick inside her. I'm an asshole. Probably should have warned her ahead of time.

Sitting down in the dingy room, to wait in that red leather booth for her, I do up my top button, straighten my collar. Rub my face with my hands hard, as if it's gonna rub away this latest mistake. I hear nothing but silence, nothing but water running behind a locked door. The dark refrain of one of her weird as hell strip songs repeats above my head, instead of over it.

_... leave me out with the waste this is not what I do... I give my gun away when it's loaded..._

I don't know if she picked the song for me, or for her. I get a sinking feeling I should have been paying more attention tonight.

When I hear the click of the door lock releasing, she steps out, an easy smile spread across her face as she glides across the room to me. One last spin around her pole, and she's already down in my lap again, wrestling my hands back, so she can kiss me, grab my cock aggressively through my pants.

"Sorry about that.", she says, shaking her head, and smiling. "I just really had to pee. I think just coming so hard like that, you know? I'm not used to that. Just feels sort of funny, you know?"

"You sure? You ran off like you were stealin' something.", I tease her, just relieved as a rattlesnake in the hands of a fervent Kentucky Pentecostal on a Sunday mornin'. Can't help one small act of reassurance, just in case, smoothing her long soft green hair away from her forehead.

"Yeah. That was amazing. You were completely amazing.", she exhales, kissing me on the jaw, slow and long. Her voice turns coy and quiet, hushed to a whisper, "Have you ever heard of girls squirting? I dunno, but I think you almost made me, but I just panicked a little, that's all. I didn't want to freak you out."

"You kiddin'? I wouldn't have. So fuckin' sexy. What kind of a limp wristed wuss wouldn't like that, huh? I'm a man. Th' harder you come, th' better.", I laugh, breathing one'a those literal sighs of relief.

"I'm so sleepy now, just like you promised."

Now that I know she's okay? I can't help but think about the next time. I got another idea. I want to wake her up in the middle of the night, fuck her when she's still half asleep, spooning her. Girls who have to shut their heads off to come always love it like that. I'll walk her to her car, then ask to go home with her.

"You've had a big day, sweetheart.", I say, rubbing her swollen knee gently. "I'm really sorry I didn't get the guy for you. Give me until Monday, an' I'm sure we got him collared. Some dink named Dewey Teach? How smart can he be when his parents were that fuckin' dumb? Probably one of those losers you see on Cops, with a crack pipe tucked behind their ear on display the whole time, huh?"

"Yeah.", Aster giggles softly, her hips twitch in my lap in tiny, almost imperceptible motions. "I don't know how a guy who if society was counting on to invent the wheel would still be waiting, dragging shit on sleds, somehow can drive something with 18 of 'em."

"One of those eternal mysteries, I guess.", I say, helping her up before I need to stick it in her again before I even get her home. I'm tired too. I'd like a few hours of shut eye before round two. "You need to get dressed? Then I can walk you to your car?"

"Sure.", she agrees, leading me out, only stopping to get her cash out of the lock slots in the main stage, and to zip on that huge brown Carhartt hoodie over her pasties and panties.

The night's clean and dark, full of the scent of resin, and the sound of cicadas. She holds my hand, though she walks straight and steady on the gravel even in those heels that make her almost as tall as I am. I expect her car to be the little Honda Fit, but it isn't. Chick's got a Cutlass Supreme, more primer than paint left on it, looks like lowered.

"You really are from California.", I joke, nodding at her car. "How do they let you back in the state, not even a single Dre in your set?"

She shrugs, already half in her unlocked car. "That's what the Sublime's supposed to smooth over."

"You should really lock your doors.", I tell her, not meaning to turn cop on her at a moment like this. Still. These girls with those old cars that don't lock themselves should. Especially in the dark parking lot of a remote strip club.

"Oh, come on.", she laughs, rolls her eyes. "What? Someone's gonna steal my scratched up 36 Chambers? I doubt it."

"I'm surprised this sloppy jalopy isn't runnin' a tape deck still.", I laugh. "Still. Just sayin'. Some dude, of the criminal element? Could wait in the car for you. It isn't safe."

"You know in legal terms, what they call it when some absolutely horrible tragedy befalls a person, that no reasonable foresight or precaution could prevent?", Aster says, slamming the door, through the open window. "They call that 'an act of God'. I'm sure you're familiar with the term. Some people hear that, they start bitching and moaning. Not me. You know what I say, Shane? That's who God is? Sounds like my kind of guy. I figure, someday, I'll go be with him. Mayhem is everywhere. I don't need to understand it. Sounds like He does."

My eyes narrow in the dark at her. I feel it. My face searches hers. This Aster girl makes my head hurt a little. Those are always the ones I like the best anyway. I wish I understood what she just said, but then, she probably does too.

So I just grin at her, lean in through her open window on the door of her car. "You want me to follow you home tonight, stay with you, just in case? You had a hard time today. I could spend th' night, make sure you're alright?", I ask her, knowing she's gonna say yes, fall on me over and over throughout the night.

When she answers back, without lookin' at me, "Think it's better if we don't.", and throws her car in drive, I can't actually believe my ears. I just stand there, eatin' dust, as I watch her red tail lights disappear into the thick pines, to be lost on the winding road.

In the dark, with nothing but the chorus of chirping from all the roaches in the trees, and the smell of the dust in the air, mixed with exhaust, I adjust my dick down. Allow myself a few seconds to feel the melancholy solitude. There's a semi parked over at the far end of the parking lot. Could go back in, find the driver, see if he knows the suspect. I don't feel like it tonight though. Easier to just make the call in the morning, once I'm back on the clock again.

I feel my shoulders slump under the weight this day, this long night.  I can't explain it, but there's an empty cold that creeps into you this time of early morning, when you're alone, waiting to meet the sun.  You feel that cold seep into you and expand, making all your empty spaces bigger.  I just fucking stare it down; welcome it.  All that expanding empty condenses on my insides, and I just clench my jaw, pick my feet up, and keep moving.  I hit the keyless entry button on my key chain, knowing I'm going to drive across the state line to Aiken. Think I'll order a waffle from Joanie, see if she's as clumsy with the syrup as she promised.  I need something warm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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